


wolves without teeth

by truthbealiar



Series: ( little lives haven't left the path that they will tread ) [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fix-It, Magic, Queen in the North, Time Travel, but somebody should be, kind of, no con crit, sansa stark is tired and angry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-03-20 19:01:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 55,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18998614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/truthbealiar/pseuds/truthbealiar
Summary: It was a common saying in the North, in the endless stretch of years following the Long Night, and the after.The pack survives,whispered the North.A time for wolves will come again.Not like this,Sansa thought desperately.- or -Five years after the destruction of King's Landing, Starks emerge from the godswood of Winterfell.Starks who should be dead.





	1. prologue: lift up my body and lose all control

**Author's Note:**

> as i was watching sansa stark crowned queen in the north for the millionth time and crying, all i could think about was how _badly_ i wanted her family to watch. and so this fic was born. 
> 
> i'm not entirely happy with this chapter, but i needed to get it posted, so c'est la vie. this is only the prologue. future chapters will be longer! i apologize if the pacing is a bit odd, it should be smoother as the story moves along.
> 
> unbeta'd. all mistakes are my own.

The rustle of leaves was what woke Jon.

He had spent many of his days in the godswood of Winterfell, and only half of it was his devotion. Jon was a believer, to be certain, but it had also offered him a certain serenity, a place to escape the chokehold of disappointment and dishonor that he carried with him, wherever he was. Jon had spent enough time in the godswood to know the sound of weirwood trees rustling above him.

But while his mind recognized the sound before he was even truly awake, in the very next second, his memories slotted into place, and he jerked upward with a gasp.

He was lying in the snow, but not as he remembered. There was no blood staining the snow around him, no traitorous faces lingering above him. Jon still felt the ghost of pain, but it was merely a memory, not the true sensation.

Jon couldn’t quite put the pieces together. He remembered - he remembered dying. He had bled out in the snow, killed by his own men. White hot rage coursed through his veins, as he was reminded of that night. Moments ago, it felt like, or perhaps eons. There was no explaining how time had passed, there was no explaining this.

Beside him, someone else gasped, and when Jon turned his head, a different sort of painful memory rose forth.

“Robb,” he choked out, scarcely believing the word as his tongue tripped over it. “Robb, Robb!” For there was his brother, lying in the snow with him, his blue eyes wide and astonished, looking exactly like the king he was. The king that was alive.

“Jon!” Robb exclaimed, pushing himself into an upright position, and stumbling to his feet. As he did so, he winced, grabbing at his chest. It was like Jon had been doused with ice. He remembered the missive. He remembered that the first blow dealt to his brother - his king - had been an arrow to the chest. Robb had died. And so had he.

“Where are we? What’s going on?” Though Jon had already begun questioning everything in his mind, Robb was quick to voice it aloud. Another rustle of leaves is the only response, and Jon pushes himself to his feet in the snow. The moment he does, and looks around, he is nearly knocked down again,

Surrounding him in the snow, in varying degrees of wakefulness, is his family. Any breath that Jon had regained - painful in the cold air - was knocked clean out of his lungs.

Jon’s mouth moved, but no sound came out. There was only the whistle of the weirwood leaves above him. Lying in the snow, scarcely a stone’s throw from where Jon now stood, was Eddard Stark.

His heart thumped painfully against his ribcage, and he suddenly pushed himself forward, stumbling through the snow. Gods but it was painful to walk again. He felt like a babe, stumbling on his own two legs. Had it been just yesterday that he was fighting? Jon felt like he was learning how to use all of his limbs. He could hardly see in front of him, his body was so shaky, eyes so blurry. It had been years since he saw his lord father alive, but now the man was _here_ lying in the snow. Jon could barely breathe.

Behind him, he heard Robb gasp, and Jon finally looked up, taking in his surroundings.

More bodies littered the godswood, all gently breathing, all familiar. Jon saw the flash of dark red that made his stomach lurch uncomfortably, and he turned away. He was glad the Lady Stark had returned. Ned Stark - aside from the one indiscretion of Jon's birth - was a devoted man. Robb had needed his mother greatly, during his tenure as king. He could see Rickon, only a few paces away from Lady Stark, and he knew that the youngest of the Stark children would need his mother more than anyone. Jon was glad she had been returned to her family, but he would not pretend there was any love lost between the two of them.

Only a bit further, Bran was lying on the ground, still and unmoving. Swallowing painfully, Jon pushed himself forward, away from his father. Bran had - Bran had fallen. He couldn't move his legs, he would live his life out as a cripple. That was the talk of Winterfell upon Jon's journey to the wall. Would Bran be forced to live out this life in the same way - whatever this life was to be? But he remained still as the statues of Stark ancestors in the crypts, and Jon was loathe to move him.

"Jon."

He hadn't heard her approach, but the moment her voice - softer, gentler than he remembered - was spoken, Jon felt her presence. He stiffened, and whirled, facing the grove of trees on his left. Jon hadn't thought there was any air left in his lungs, but the gods had found more, and knocked it straight out of him.

"Little sister," he breathed, and surged forward.

It had been years since Jon had held Arya in his arms. Years since he had ruffled her hair and handed her a sword of real steel. Despite the years - despite the death, because Jon _remembered_ the bite of his brothers' blades, the keen pain of betrayal - it felt just as sweet as it always had. More so, because Jon had gone so long without knowing if he would ever have this chance again.

Jon heard others rising around him, signaled by the various yelps of joy. But all Jon could think about was holding Arya tightly in his arms. They had always been close, as siblings. Always different, not quite Robb or Sansa. It had brought them together in a special fashion, and Jon treasured Arya. The devastation he felt, when he learned that his sisters were trapped in the capitol with no champion - it was akin to learning that his father's head had been removed from his body by the Lannister bastard.

Somewhat reluctantly, Jon pulled back.

"You look different," he marveled, grey eyes carefully appraising the young woman before him. "You're older." His brow creased in confusion. It had been some years since Jon had seen Arya, of course, but he hadn't expected such a change. He couldn't even articulate the difference he saw. Arya simply stared back at him with sad eyes, and he found himself pulling back, his frown deepening.

"Much has happened, brother."

Jon opened his mouth to ask Arya what she meant, but the chance was taken from him.

"How is this possible?" Robb demanded, and Jon turned to face the rest of the Starks. Ned was now standing, embracing Catelyn tightly in his arms. Rickon was hovering close to the pair of them, wide-eyed and nervous. Bran was in the midst of sitting up, with Robb crouching beside him. "I died. I know it to be true. I was killed at the Twins." His eyes met Catelyn's, and Jon could see the pain there. "Mother did too."

Even from here, Jon could see the way Ned's arms tightened around his lady wife.

"I falsely confessed to treason," he rumbled, and his voice nearly brought Jon to his knees. It had been _so long_ since he had heard it. "I was executed. And yet here I stand. If what you said is true Robb," he glanced around at the family scattered around the godswood, "Then we must be dead. We all must have died."

The words were sobering in the face of Jon's shocked joy at this reunion. It was a possibility he had not yet considered.

"Aye," he spoke, his voice hoarse, but steady. He saw Lady Stark's eyes narrow at him, but Jon swallowed, and continued. "I died. I was killed by my men." He watched his father inhale sharply, and Robb's eyes flashed.

"Your men?" He demanded, with the expectancy of a man who had been king - one who was used to receiving answers when he requested them. "You're Lord Commander then?"

"Aye," Jon said again, nodding. His shoulders suddenly felt heavy, once again weighed down with the weight of that burden. "I was. It seems my watch has ended."

Lady Stark remained stiff in her husband's arms, but only a moment later she was breaking free of his hold, striding right past Ned, and even brushing by Jon in her desperation to get to her daughter. Jon was nearly bowled over, so focused was Catelyn. Jon was close enough to hear the proud woman's sobs, and he averted his eyes carefully, giving the mother and daughter the privacy they deserved. He glanced at Robb, still crouching beside Bran, his eyes looking suspiciously wet as he watched his mother and sister together. Jon could hear the soft whispers Lady Stark mumbled into her daughter's hair, but when he chanced a glance, Arya's expression puzzled him. It was not what he would expect, watching his younger sister be reunited with her mother for the first time since she was but one and ten.

"Your first watch has ended." The voice ripped Jon away from his thoughts, and his gaze met the unnerving one of Bran Stark. "This is only your first death."

Bran Stark was always the vibrant one, in Jon's mind. He had heard, through letters, that Bran had named his direwolf Summer. Jon remembered thinking at the time, just how fitting a name it was. Bran had always seemed like a summer child to Jon. More so than any of the Starks, even Sansa, for all her love of the Southern songs. Bran was never quiet, nor patient. He was always in motion: climbing, running, leaping. There was always the faintest twitch at the corners of his lips, as if any moment a mischievous smile might bloom across them, paired with twinkling, troublesome eyes. Jon doubted that even Bran's fall could have robbed him of that.

The Bran who had spoken was not one Jon knew. He looked young. In fact, he looked just as Jon remembered him. His hair was long and shaggy, his limbs at that terribly awkward stage of boyhood. But there was something equally wise and wretched in his eyes. Jon rather felt like Bran was staring into his very soul, when the boy's gaze met his.

Wordlessly, Bran braced his hands against the ground, and pushed himself up. Jon inhaled sharply, releasing the breath in equal measure, as he watched what he had been certain he would never see again.

Bran was standing, on his own two feet, unaided. Jon could have sworn he saw a flash of _something_ in his eyes, but it was gone as quickly as it came.

"The gods must have chosen to interpret this as a first death as well," Bran murmured to himself. And with that, the floodgates opened, and the questions came pouring forth.

"What do you mean first death?"

"Jon's first death? What does that even mean, how does he die twice?"

"Where are we? Are we truly dead?"

"Enough."

It was Ned Stark's steady voice that stopped the onslaught of questions. Jon hadn't voiced his own, simply because his head felt too heavy, his tongue like lead in his mouth. He didn't even know what to ask first. No one did, but it seemed if anyone was to have answers, it was Bran.

"We're not dead." Jon's eyes moved towards Arya. "We died, but we are not dead." She spoke the words simply, as if what she was saying was _easy_ to comprehend. But there was enough Stark left within her to recognize the frustration that was quickly rising, for she did not leave it at that. Jon was grateful. "All of us died. Bran was still alive when I perished, so he must have been the last to die. Or perhaps Jon. I had received word that he was lost, but I never found out what had happened. We all died, but we are not dead. Look around. This isn't what you remember."

At Arya's words, they all looked around. For a moment, Jon didn't understand. And then he saw it. His eyes widened, and he made an abortive move toward the fallen tree, but he remained where he was. In the next instant, the rest of the Starks seemed to see it too. The closer Jon looked, the more trees he saw, fallen to the ground, hacked, brutally attacked. Weirwood trees did not simply _fall_. Nor were they cut. The godswood was sacred, and to do such a thing was blasphemy of the highest degree. Even Lady Stark seemed to tremble, looking upon the carnage of her husband's place of worship.

"What happened here?" Robb choked out, breathlessly.

"A great battle." Arya's voice was still had that soft, nearly incandescent quality that Jon was growing to loathe. His gloved fingers clenched into a tight fist at his side, but he stood wordlessly, waiting for her to continue. Since she and Bran seemed to be the only two who had any idea what was going on, he supposed he was at the mercy of his younger siblings. It was uncomfortable for Jon to admit just how much that was currently unnerving him. "It was years ago, when I passed. But healing takes time. The North is always running a bit short on that."

Jon and the Stark family looked at one another, trading gazes. The comforting presence of the gods that Jon had always felt, whenever he came into the godswood, had become rather ominous. Jon almost swore he could hear voices, mingling with the leaves. The gods had spoken to him hear, he truly believed, but never like this.

"Do you mean to say, you think we are in - we have woken up years after our deaths?" Ned questioned. His voice was carefully weighed, giving the sense that he was carefully considering Arya's words. But the look on his face was incredulous, full of doubt and disbelief. Ned Stark was not a man of duplicitous nature, and the thoughts of his heart and mind were clear for all to see. Though this Arya seemed to take it in her stride, no sense of slight or offense visible on her face.

She simply nodded, and it was too much for Catelyn Stark.

"This is madness!" She burst out. A flock of birds suddenly shot up from the trees, squalling, and startling poor Rickon in their wake. He stumbled forward, clutching at his mother's dress. He was a boy of near one and ten now, Jon could see. He didn't understand - Theon Greyjoy had killed Bran and Rickon at Winterfell, hadn't he? - but he was acting much younger. It was a sharp difference from the wild little boy that had clung to Jon's furs as he carried him through the halls of Winterfell for so many years. "This is utter madness! I don't know what to make of this - this witchcraft, but I won't stand for it anymore! We're in Winterfell, that's all that matters. We must return at once. Perhaps this has all been some strange dream."

Jon could see Catelyn's gaze take on a new glint of desperation, and he felt pity, despite his better judgment. Her explanation was far less believable than Arya's, but it was kinder. Jon wished for nothing but kindness for Lady Stark. She didn't necessarily deserve such thoughts from Jon, but he would give them all the same. Jon would not deny that there was some small part of himself that loathed his father's wife, but she was undeniably a dutiful wife, and a loving mother. Whatever her feelings towards Jon, she had given him a family, even if she never meant for them to be his.

He didn't disagree with her either. This was a sort of madness. Jon could feel it in his bones. The shock and joyous relief at waking and seeing his family together again was fading somewhat. Jon was left with an iciness in his bones that had nothing to do with the dusting of snow covering the godswood. He had been betrayed. Murdered, by his own men. He saw the reflection of such a betrayal in Robb's own eyes. Both of them had performed transgressions deemed unforgivable by the men that had sworn to follow them, and they had paid a steep price for it. Jon wasn't sure if this was to be reward, or punishment.

"Madness and reality often follow each other like dogs." Bran's voice, as odd and foreign as Arya's rang out, and Jon clenched his fists even tighter. Lady Stark looked like she wanted to scream, and in that moment, Jon felt an odd sort of kinship with her. The frustration was mounting, and the memories and knowledge of what was to come only pushed him further.

"We don't have _time_ for this!" Jon snapped. "We've got to - we need to go back to Winterfell. Now. We've got to start preparing. Winter is coming. The White Walkers. I've seen them."

Eddard's face looked like it was carved of stone, while Robb looked like someone had slammed the hilt of a sword into his face. Lady Stark wore the expression of one who had spent too long sucking on lemons, but it was often the face she wore whenever Jon spoke. He noticed it became particularly frequent, whenever she didn't have anything to say back.

Arya and Bran looked utterly untroubled. In fact, Jon could have sworn he saw the ghost of a smirk playing on his sister's lips. Despite the rising aggravation he felt in his blood, he was relieved to see it. Perhaps Arya wasn't as lost to him as he had begun thinking.

"Peace Jon. The White Walkers are gone. They won't trouble us anymore."

Jon's eyebrows raised, before immediately furrowing into a frown. He wanted to play Robb's role, and demand answers from the younger siblings who had been shaped and changed in ways Jon feared he would never understand, but he didn't get the chance. Before he could say a word, the sound of footsteps reached his ears, and he stiffened - Robb and Ned following suit.

Instinctively, Jon reached for Longclaw, only to find that it was not there. He had a moment of sorrow, realizing that the blade had not followed him into this life, whatever it was, but a far more pressing matter was at hand. This was the godswood of Winterfell, and no enemies should descend upon them here, but they couldn't be too careful. They didn't know these lands anymore. Arya and Bran appeared calm, at least. Jon didn't know if that comforted him or not. He rather thought it was the latter.

Ned and Robb found themselves similarly unarmed, but they took fighting stances all the same. Robb stood near Bran and Rickon, while Catelyn attempted to pull Arya behind her. The youngest Stark girl slipped away from her mother, as if made of water, producing a familiar looking blade from what seemed like thin air. Jon's eyes widened a fraction, more questions bubbling forth on his lips, but there was no time. He would interrogate his sister later. If they made it out of the woods alive.

Another twig snapped underfoot, and Jon felt his heart thudding against the walls of his chest. Blood was rushing through his body, and he was acutely aware of the fact that he had _died_ just hours ago. Perhaps it had truly been eons since he had been slaughtered in the snow, but for Jon's own mind, it was not even a moon ago. He didn't know if he was ready to face down death quite so soon.

The figure that emerged from the tree line didn't appear to be death, but she didn't look particularly kind either. In fact, she looked deadly.

"Brienne!"

Jon turned, curious at the voices that had called out. Arya looked overjoyed to see the tall woman - a genuine smile was wrapped around her lips. She knew her then. Bran appeared familiar with the woman as well, and graced her with a smile. Jon suspected such instances were rare. But Lady Stark appeared to be familiar with the woman too - though she looked far more shocked to see her standing in front of them.

For the lady's part, this Brienne looked stunned in equal measure.

"L-lady Stark, Your Grace - I - I -"

She was at a loss for words. Strange, how her stuttering made Jon feel more at ease than anything else, since opening his eyes. Arya and Bran - they had changed. They had perhaps seen too much, or even knew too much. There was a distance to them, that Jon feared he might never be able to breach, even with all of the lifetimes he could possibly live. The other Starks simply seemed so naturally steady and strong. Robb was unflappable, the true King of the North. Ned Stark might as well have been carved from the winter ice himself. Jon was - he was _not_. This Brienne and her struggle to understand what was before her very eyes felt far more comfortable to Jon than any reassurance that might have come from his own kin.

"Brienne! Brienne what are you doing? Are you sure we're even allowed to be here? We're supposed to be meeting - seven hells!"

Another figure joined the tall woman. It was a young man who seemed just as stunned as Brienne.

"Hullo Pod." A glance back at Arya confirmed that another smile was curled around her lips. Bran too, was smiling at the young man, who looked like a stiff breeze might manage to knock him over. Despite this, he was dressed in a white cloak. In fact, so was Brienne. Jon frowned. He had never heard of a woman joining the Kingsguard. But if it was true, it was little wonder that Arya held so much affection in her voice for the woman. It still didn't clear up Jon's confusion.

What were two members of the Kingsguard doing in the godswood of Winterfell?

"My king! You can walk!"

Jon exchanged a glance with Robb, before their eyes drifted to Bran. He didn't look surprised at the moniker Pod had used. _Bran must have been declared king then, after Robb_ , Jon thought to himself. _When he was found alive, the North must have moved again for independence._ Jon prayed they had won it, before realizing what a foolish prayer it had been. What had happened in Bran's life was already done. He had lived it, and still died. It occurred to Jon that Bran had revealed little of his own death. Jon had been too preoccupied with the idea that he might die more than once. It was a terrible thought to behold, so he pushed it out of his mind, and focused on the two gawking figures.

"Ser, Lady Brienne - "

"Ser Brienne."

Several voices corrected Ned Stark, overlapping in a discordant chime. Jon noticed that Brienne was not one of those voices, though she had stiffened somewhat, at his father's address. Ned, for his part, accepted the correction, and nodded slowly.

"Ser Brienne. I am Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell." His face twitched in something approximating a smile. "Or rather, I was. In another life. I do not know how we have arrived here, nor how we have come to be among the living once again. I only ask that you bring us to Winterfell."

Jon swallowed. Ned had died - years ago now. His death had been the catalyst for dozens of events, each as unfortunate as the next. He didn't know anything about Greyjoys and Boltons and the traitors the North had harbored. He didn't know what the state of Winterfell might be. None of them knew, perhaps save for Bran. Arya had admitted she hadn't returned to Winterfell in years. Jon was terrified to see what might have become of the only home he had ever recognized in his heart. But he felt the call, as surely as Ned did. They had to see. They had to return.

Even if all they returned to was dust and ashes.

Ser Brienne seemed to deliberate, looking at each of the resurrected souls in front of her carefully. Jon wondered what costs she weighed in her mind, what tendrils of consequence she followed before deciding upon an outcome. Watching her face reminded Jon of something, but he couldn't identify where he had seen such a mannerism before.

Whatever Brienne had been considering in the privacy of her thoughts, she seemed to reach a decision soon enough. She carefully sheathed the sword that Jon had failed to notice. As she did, Jon observed with interest, that it was another sword of Valyrian steel. _Just how many of those were floating around the North?_ he wondered wryly.

"We are very grateful, Lady - Ser Brienne," Lady Stark caught herself quickly, and gave the woman a kind smile. Ser Brienne seemed to attempt giving her one in return, but it was tinged with the surprise that had not yet left her expression.

Her gaze skipped to Arya, and for a moment, Jon could have sworn he saw her hard expression soften. But it was gone as quickly as it had come, and Ser Brienne’s face became impassive once more - thrown into sharp relief against the beaming grin of the Kingsguard next to her.

“Let us return to Winterfell then. There are those who would speak with you.”  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> confused? so is jon snow. there are a lot of questions and things that need to be addressed - and they will be! i've tried to stick to show canon as much as possible, but this is five years after the finale!
> 
> tangentially related, but the sansa in this fic will be the personification of halsey's 'nightmare', so go give that a listen and get hyped for the queen in the north to make her appearance next chapter. 
> 
> as always, thank you for reading, and any comments are always appreciated <3 i know no queen but the queen in the north who's name is stark, so come scream with me about her on [tumblr](http://joygreys.tumblr.com/).


	2. you run in my veins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The queen in the North meets with the unexpected guests of the godswood.

**SANSA:**

Sansa shifted quietly in her chair, trying to make herself comfortable, when her back was screaming in pain. Sansa had been sat at her desk, making her way through the various missives sent from King's Landing, for the better part of an hour. She sorely longed to stretch her legs, and take a walk around Winterfell, but she knew it would be that much more difficult to return to her work if she did. It was best to complete the task she had set herself, before entertaining notions of a respite. Besides, Sansa had let this sit long enough. Over the past three months, Sansa had slowly begun to take up her duties again, but there was still much that needed to be done. 

The fire roaring in the hearth was the main source of light, though Sansa had taken to lighting several candles on her desk, to reduce the strain on her eyes. The solar that had previously belonged to her father, and rebuilt in her name, had several windows that flooded the room with natural light, when the curtains were drawn back. But Sansa had found that it was often easiest to leave them shut, whenever she had work that simply needed to be done. Otherwise she would quickly become distracted by the going-ons of Winterfell, and the keen sense of longing for open air.

Once, Sansa had hated the outdoors. At least, she had claimed as much. There were so many opportunities to dirty oneself, and it was never as warm and welcoming as a keep. But even then, Sansa had felt a certain yearning for the bitter chill of the outdoors, and the fresh air she drew with every breath. She had learned to wear her love for the world outside of walls on her sleeve. Her time in King's Landing had taught her much, and left her with the primal instinct never to allow herself to be caged again. Now she was in a position where she could ensure that very promise she made herself. The only thing that shackled Sansa Stark anymore, was her own sense of duty.

Still, she didn't mind this work, tedious though it was. Sansa still didn't have much of a head for figures, but in all other respects, she had been raised to be a queen. She had often wondered, in the years since ascending to the throne as the first queen of the independent North, if her father hadn't suspected even then, that Sansa would someday be a queen. Perhaps he had always intended for her to be wed to Joffrey. Or perhaps Ned Stark had possessed a wider vision than any - including Sansa herself - gave him credit for. Whatever the truth, it was undeniable that Ned had certainly tailored Sansa's lessons as a child, for one that would someday be suited to rule.

She wondered wryly, if he had ever suspected he might be father to two kings, one queen, and uncle to another.

_ Not anymore. _

The thought seized Sansa painfully, and she closed her eyes, allowing herself a moment to gather her breath.

Sansa closed her eyes and allowed herself a moment, only a moment, to fight back the tears, before opening them once more, and pulling the scrolls toward her. The sooner she finished this correspondence, the sooner she would be free to attend to the matters she wished. Writing to Lord Bronn of the Reach was never an enjoyable task - not least because it reminded Sansa of who ought to be ruling the Reach - but it needed to be done. Sansa was determined to have at least three more glass gardens placed strategically around the North. Sansa had made great strides in not only repairing the war and winter ravaged North, but taking advantage of the spring that had descended, in order to prepare for the next winter to come. Even the South was taking note, and several lords had reached out to her, inquiring about the steps necessary to create their own glass gardens. It was not quite as necessary for the Southron keeps as it was for the North, but the long winter had taught all of Westeros that nothing was untouched by the hardship of the cold.

Dipping her quill in the ink again, Sansa contemplated what to say. She found Bronn to be a distasteful man, and she was certain that Margaery and Olenna would both be apoplectic if they could see what had become of the Reach. But he was admittedly becoming more tolerable, thanks to his betrothal to Lady Redwyne, who had taken it upon herself to quickly ingratiate herself in the Reach's business. Sansa found herself grateful to the future Lady of the Reach. The alliance between the queen in the North and the Warden of the South had hardly been the most natural of alliances, but it was certainly one of the most necessary. While the Reach had lost much of its wealth, thanks to the Lannisters, and then Daenerys Targaryen's dragons, its land was still fertile and bountiful.

Not unlike Sansa herself, Lord Bronn never hesitated in reminding her. She found herself rolling her eyes with every raven that came from the Reach. Once she would have been appalled at the sheer nerve of a former sellsword - one that had been granted the land that rightfully belonged to the Tyrells (even a lower bush) - writing to her in such a fashion, especially when he was already betrothed to a woman already far above his station. Unfortunately, such things no longer shocked Sansa.

Addressing only the matters of the trade agreement she was currently negotiating - and quickly putting a swift end to Lord Bronn's hopes at taking advantage of her purported difficulty with figures - Sansa finished the letter, and signed it with her familiar seal, smirking to herself. Sansa hadn't taken to figures as well as she had every other part of ruling, it was true, but she was hardly as disastrous as she allowed others to believe. She was slow at learning, but eager and determined. Besides, she had a Master of Coin, and one she actually happened to  _ trust _ . But Sansa had learned the value in allowing men to believe her weaker than she was. It made it easier - and far more satisfactory - to swoop in for the kill of her own. 

A knock startled Sansa out of her reverie, and she set the letter aside as the oak door quickly opened closed.

Sansa raised an eyebrow. Despite her childhood attitude, she no longer cared much for propriety, aside from the perception of others. Sansa's mind was sharp, and designed for the unforgiving blades of rumors and whispers, but she no longer had the same noose around her neck, as during her time in King's Landing, nor did she fear the fire that may rain down her spine at any second. Sansa was not so foolish as to assume she was safe, and free from all danger, but she allowed herself the freedom to shed her armor of courtesy and manners occasionally. She had spent so long in her own home, wearing a face carved of stone, that sometimes, Sansa was too exhausted to wear even a thin veneer, rather than her own weariness. 

It did not bother Sansa that Brienne had not waited to be admitted, nor did it bother her that she had not announced herself. But it was uncharacteristic of the lady knight. Ser Brienne was a true night of honor, and wore courtesy as well as she did her armor forged of steel. The fact that she had forgone it was telling.

"Your Grace, I apologize, but this matter is urgent."

Sansa couldn't help but frown. The last time an urgent matter had been brought to her, she had received word that her brother, the last remaining son of Eddard and Catelyn Stark, and king of the Six Kingdoms, had died. She could not stop the fear that gripped her heart like a vice.

"What is it Brienne?" Sansa asked anxiously.

"Ser Podrick and I were in the godswood, as you know." Sansa nodded. After an  _ incident _ with a particularly persistent lord, Sansa had decided to balance the privacy of her prayers with the comfort and protection that came with the Lady Commander of her Queensguard, and the Captain of the Winterfell guard. They visited the godswood at the same time every day, but Sansa had been running a bit late today, and had not left to attend to her prayers when she ought. "We found...Your Grace, it doesn't seem quite possible."

Sansa only felt her worries growing. Ser Brienne had only been a part of Sansa's Queensguard for a month, since departing from King's Landing after Bran's death, but Sansa had known her for far longer. She couldn't quite recall ever seeing an expression like the one Brienne currently wore. Fear, mixed in with awe. Sansa's fingers trembled, and she prayed Brienne didn't notice.

"What did you find?"

"Your Grace...we found the Starks. Your family. They're...alive."

As a child, Sansa had always been terribly good at following directions. She desperately wanted to please her mother and father, and make them smile. She liked it when people smiled at her, and found it easy to coax the lovely expression out of people. Ned Stark was a hard man, and certainly his smiles came less frequently than her lady mother's, but Sansa had learned that doing as she was told was an easy way to make her parents smile. However, she had her moments of disobedience, moments of rebellion. One such occasion had nearly ended Sansa's life, before it had even truly begun. 

Ned had brought the entire family, even little Rickon up North - far North. Not quite to the Wall, but close enough that the rivers had run frozen at certain times. Sansa had thought it absolutely beautiful, the hidden rushing waters underneath a thick layer of ice that glittered like diamonds. Ned had cautioned his children away from the frozen river, close enough to the keep that was hosting them, but Sansa had been too enamored by its beauty to heed her father's warnings. She had ventured out onto the ice, while Robb, Theon, and Jon had played on the banks, too old to entertain her girlish games any longer, and too interested in their own to mind the Stark girl.

Sansa had made it to the very center of the river, when the ice began to crack under her weight. She had only just begun to scream when the ice gave away fully, plunging Sansa straight into the icy water. She hadn't recalled much after that, only the bitter chill of the water that clung to her bones, and the desperate, gasping breaths she had heaved when the boys finally managed to rescue her. Later that night, bundled in thick furs, and sitting near the fire next to her rescuers who all sported lips as blue as her own, Sansa had hung her head in shame as her father sternly reprimanded her for her behavior. Usually, whenever that memory rose up within her, it was the scolding that Sansa remembered more than anything.

Now it was the suddenness of the fall that Sansa recalled. One moment her world had been upright, spinning on its axis, warm enough, save for the chilly winds. The next, the icy ground was falling out from underneath her, and all Sansa could feel was the cold emptiness of the water, the certainty that this was all that was left of life.

She stood, carved from ice, every inch the cold Northern queen, as the oak doors opened further, and Ser Podrick Payne stepped into the solar, leading what was indeed Sansa's whole family, alive before her very eyes.

There was a moment of distinct confusion. Sansa's mind was no longer the carefully arranged cyvasse board, but a mess of chaos and memories. She blinked hard, but when she opened her eyes again, her family was still standing in front of her, staring with as much shock as Sansa was sure she wore on her own face - her own training of sorts be damned. Sansa almost paused to ask one of the dozens of questions that was running through her mind. How was this possible? Was this real? Could this possibly last?

Instead, she surged forward, in a way she had not done since arriving at Castle Black, and all but flung herself into Catelyn Stark's arms. 

" _ Mother _ ."

She felt, rather than heard her mother's broken sobs, and Sansa buried her face in her mother's neck. She had been a girl of ten and three when she had last seen Catelyn Stark. Now she was a woman grown. She had more in common with her mother than she dared to voice aloud, and she was the queen in the North. Yet she had never felt a hug as sweet as the one she felt right now, locked in her mother's embrace. Sansa did not dare ask any of the questions that still lingered on the tip of her tongue, because she did not want answers. She wanted only this.

"Oh my sweet Sansa. You've grown so much." Sansa heard her mother's whispers into her hair, but she paid them no mind. Sansa didn't trust herself to speak around the painful lump that had lodged itself in her throat. She allowed herself and her mother this comfort for a moment longer, before stiffening, and pulling away.

No tears had fallen from Sansa's eyes, though she was certain they were not far off. But Sansa had done her fair share of crying over Starks. She did not wish to shed those tears again. Attempting to clear her throat, she glanced around the solar, her lips parted slightly, taking in her family.

Robb stood, looking suspiciously close to tears himself, swallowing, and staring at her as if she were a ghost, when it was he who had been the one to perish. Sansa had learned enough about the signs of emotion to see the guilt hidden in his gaze, but she refused the thought and the pain it brought. Instead her eyes jumped to Rickon, the small boy who had been a promise of such hope, only to be snatched away by the man that had not died a cruel enough death, even by Sansa's own hand. Next to him was Arya, and upon seeing her sister, Sansa  _ did _ let out a dry sob, and quickly crossed the length of the floor to capture the other Stark woman in a hug as fierce as Arya.

She had received word, hardly a year after Arya's departure, that her ship had disappeared at sea. No word had been given on survivors, and Sansa had prayed every day for her sister's safe return home. Each day, her hope had waned ever so slightly, but Sansa had still prayed she would see her sister again. Perhaps the gods were not as cruel as Sansa had grown to expect.

"Did you find what was west of Westeros?" Sansa asked quietly, though she knew the rest of her family could still hear. There would be time for her private conversations with her sister later. For now, Sansa intended to enjoy having her in her arms once more.

Arya's lips turned upward into a small smile, far softer than any she had worn since the two had been reunited in Winterfell the first time.

"A way back home."

Sansa swallowed, and allowed a tear to fall. She hastily wiped it away, and hugged her sister close again. Looking up, she all but gasped, as she found herself staring into the face of her father. 

She felt frozen, trapped in Arya's embrace, pinned down by the warmth in Eddard Stark's eyes. It had been Sansa's words that condemned Ned Stark to his fate, yet he stared at her with nothing but kindness and love in his eyes. Sansa remained close to Arya, all but trembling in her arms, but Ned reached out, softly stroking Sansa's hair. 

"You have no idea how happy I am to see you here, alive and well sweet one."

Another sob, another tear. Sansa found herself grateful that it was only Podrick and Brienne in the solar with her. She trusted them both with her life, that was true enough, but they had seen her, desperate and starving and trembling with terror in the snow covered woods, before they ever saw her as their queen. They had seen Sansa in such a state of despair, that seeing their queen rejoice in this way would do nothing to tarnish the image of her in their minds. Sansa knew that well enough, but it was a relief all the same.

Finally managing to take some desperate breaths, Sansa began to slow process of regaining composure, blinking back the rest of her tears, and finally untangling herself from Arya. She took another deep breath and straightened, reminding herself of the queen she needed to be. Looking around, Sansa noticed the other two faces she hadn't yet paused to examine. Her heart flipped in her chest, but her eyes skittered away from  _ him _ and focused on the easier of the two.

Bran's face was altogether familiar and disconcerting. He was - he was  _ Bran _ . Sansa could see it in his eyes. He still seemed impossible to read, but so was she. There seemed to be life in him that had not been present when Sansa had watched a makeshift council declare him king. 

"I suppose you're the one I ought to question about all of this," Sansa stated simply. Her voice did not waver, and she felt the eyes of her family, volleying between herself and Bran. She could have sworn she also saw Bran's lips twitch, but it just as well could have been a trick of the flickering shadows cast by the roaring fire.

"I did tell you I had some books brought in from the Citadel."

Bran spoke so matter of factly, that Sansa drew in a sharp breath. She remembered what Bran's most recent letters had been consumed with. She remembered cautioning him against such pursuits. She had cited Stannis and Melisandre, and even the dragon queen's cursed womb, until eventually Bran had stopped writing her of his goals. Sansa had prayed that he had also stopped chasing such madness. But it was only a fortnight later that the dark raven, carrying dark tidings, had arrived from King's Landing.

“Everything happens for a reason.”

“If I recall correctly,” Sansa said mildly, “I believe I wrote that if you continued to attempt this nonsense, I would have Brienne toss you from another tower.”

“ _ Sansa _ !”

Sansa ignored the scandalized, horrified tone of her mother, in favor of pursuing the ghost of a smile she was now certain she saw playing at Bran’s lips. It was a scant little thing, but Sansa found it easier to spot than she might have five years ago. She had not seen her royal brother since the day in King’s Landing - a day she still counted among some of her worst. Despite this, her correspondence with the King of the Six Kingdoms had been frequent and lengthy. Surprisingly, the Stark that had claimed to have no humanity left within himself had been far less reticent, of the family members Sansa wrote to. In fact, he actually wrote back. A truly extraordinary thing. She liked to think she had become closer to Bran, over the Years of Rebirth, as they were known across Westeros. 

Besides, Bran’s face - the face of a young boy, no more than one and ten - this was familiar to Sansa. More familiar than the blank, expressionless mask Sansa had grown used to seeing Bran wear. She was familiar with the way his lips twisted into smiles, normally much larger.

“Brienne is the Commander of the Kingsguard. She would never push me.”

Sansa raised a single eyebrow. 

“The circumstances of your previous fall notwithstanding, you are no longer a king.  _ Bran _ .” Sansa took great pleasure in using his given name, abandoning any such formalities that he might have entertained previously. Bran’s mouth twitched again. But Sansa’s own smile was fading, and she looked around the room again, trying not to let her eyes linger for too long on any particular person. 

Though Sansa kept her eyes trained carefully on Bran’s face, she was cataloguing the expressions of her other family members from the corners of her eye. Ned Stark looked stunned, but her mother and older brother didn’t appear nearly as surprised. Beneath her desk, Sansa clenched her hand into a fist, allowing her nails to bite her skin. They likely assumed he had risen to power in the wake of the Red Wedding, and took up the mantle their brother had left behind. Sansa’s throat felt thick with the many painful truths she had been forced to choke down.

Her eyes drifted ever so slightly to the side, and she felt her expression soften. “Rickon,” she breathed, and in a single flurry of movement, the youngest Stark all but launched himself at Sansa’s arms. Her eyes closed, and her grip tightened around her younger brother. She hadn’t been there to see Rickon’s death, but she had been the one to remove the arrows from his body. She had wept ceaseless tears over her poor younger brother, only one and ten, robbed of all that life ought to have given him. 

Unexpectedly, tears rushed to her eyes, but Sansa refused to let them fall. Rickon did not know - he would never know - what hope he had brought her. Sansa had never had the chance to impress upon Rickon what hearing his very  _ name  _  had done for her. Theon Greyjoy had saved her from the madness of Ramsay Bolton, but the day he revealed the truth about her younger brothers had been the day Sansa began to live again. She had never told Theon of what he had done for her that day either. But Sansa would not let such an opportunity slip through her fingers again. Not now. Not now that they had returned to her.

“I’ve missed you,” Sansa admitted quietly, and allowed her eyes to lift from the crown of Rickon’s head. Glancing around the people standing in her solar, she swallowed painfully. “I’ve missed all of you.”

Bran had written her, nearly two years ago, of several tomes he had found. Accounts of magic, he had explained. Old rituals that carried the weight and power of the old gods. Sansa had cautioned him against foolish recklessness, but Bran had paid her little heed. For someone who had supposedly lost all sense of identity to his visions, Bran had seemingly pursued this end with a stubbornness that was truly indicative of a Stark. He had told Sansa precious little of the process - only that he suspected there might be a way to restore the House of Stark. Sansa had not dared to inquire further. She had not dared to let herself  _ hope _ . But now the Starks were  _ here _ , standing in front of her. Still, Sansa had questions.

Arya looked just as Sansa last remembered her. Perhaps a bit more weathered, but she had been lost so soon after her farewell. A year had not been enough time to render her unrecognizable to her sister’s eyes. Rickon too, was the same young, wild boy that Sansa remembered from that horrifying parley. Although Sansa had not seen her mother and brother before their slaughter at the Twins, they looked as she imagined they must have. Ned, painful though it was to look upon her father - the father she had lead to his death - was exactly as Sansa recalled, staring up at him on the base of a statue of a god he did not believe in. They were the same.

But Jon and Bran…

It was easier to look upon Bran’s face. The last time Sansa had seen her brother, his face had been long, his hair shorn shorter, and his legs permanently immobile. He had been a man of ten and seven, and a king of six kingdoms. The boy who stood in front of her was not that.

He was standing, on his own two feet. The way he had once stood, before his fall. As a boy of ten. Bran looked very much like that boy now. And Jon - 

Sansa’s heart  _ ached _ . It was painful to look at her cousin, and she barely allowed her eyes to rest on him. Her once brother, once king. The Lord Commander. The wildling prince. Jon Snow had shouldered many names in his life, but to Sansa he had always been  _ Jon _ . It was difficult to stand here in her solar, with everything she could have ever dreamed of, and not succumb to the tears she desperately wished to shed. It felt impossible to hide the way the jagged, broken pieces of her heart seemed to clink together painfully when she so much as glanced at Jon. 

His death, apart from Bran’s, was the most recent. The solemn news had arrived a little less than a year ago - only a sennight after Jon had departed Winterfell. His departure had been full of anger and bitter words, as was often the case when Sansa and Jon met, following the destruction of King’s Landing. As Jon had headed north of the Wall, and Sansa had been crowned queen in the North, their tempers and grievances had been given opportunity to fester and smolder. Every interaction had carried hostile words and heated glances. And yet none of that had tempered Sansa’s heart. Her anger had done nothing to soften the devastation of Jon’s death.

The Jon who was standing in the midst of her solar was not the Jon who had left her in Winterfell with harsh words and a furious kiss, meant to be as punishing as it was devotional. Sansa recognized the injuries that marred Jon’s face. They were fresh, not yet scarred. He did not look at her with eyes that were set in a weary face, eyes that spoke of fury and desire warring within him. 

This was the Jon who Sansa had seen after five years of being a wolf left to fend for herself. He looked at her with those same eyes as he did the day she had arrived at Castle Black - so hopeful and desperate that he might give way to the tears Sansa refused to let fall. 

Clearing her throat, Sansa pressed her fingertips against her desk, and glanced at Bran. A silence had fallen over her solar, and Sansa realized they were waiting for her to speak. Her mother - and didn’t Sansa’s heart thump painfully realizing that she was standing in front of her  _ mother  _ once again - looked as if she wanted desperately to open her mouth, but she followed her husband’s lead, while Ned Stark simply appraised her quietly. Sansa had to remind herself not to squirm under his gaze. She was the queen in the North.  _ Porcelain, ivory, steel _ , she reminded herself sternly. She could not falter, not here.

“Bran,” Sansa said softly, “I need you to explain.”

The former king of the Six Kingdoms gave a sigh, far too heavy for the body he now used. He glanced around the room, and Sansa noted that all eyes were trained on him. She had her suspicions that Bran had been quite reticent with what he divulged, before arriving in front of Sansa. The majority of the Starks still wore expressions of frustrated confusion. Sansa stepped around her desk, bringing Rickon - who was still practically clinging to her dress - with her. Her family, save for Jon, barely seemed to notice her movement, so focused were they on Bran’s words.

“After Jaime Lannister pushed me from the tower -” here, Catelyn inhaled sharply, and Sansa watched the way her father squeezed her hand, steadying her without a word, “I began having visions. Greensight dreams. A long and dangerous path lead me beyond the Wall, where I became the Three-Eyed Raven.” It was Ned’s turn to stiffen, and Sansa’s careful eyes followed Robb as he turned to his father in confusion. “The memory of humanity,” Bran added. “I could see past, present, and future.”

“ _ Could _ ,” Sansa stated. It was not posed as a question, but her brother heard it for what it was.

“I am no longer the Three-Eyed Raven. I suspect my meddling in the magic of the old gods had something to do with that. I believe that is the reason I came back like this. Before my fall. I didn’t have any visions until I lost the use of my legs. It set the wheel in motion for me to die, in order to become the Three-Eyed Raven.”

“And Jon?” Sansa asked, before she could stop herself. She felt the eyes of her family on her now, her mother’s gaze burning her skin. But Sansa did not tear her gaze away from Bran. His eyes seemed so full of expression, full of  _ life _ now, even if he spoke in that same, odd manner she had forced herself to grow accustomed to. 

“Jon lived two lives,” Bran informed the room at large, news that was only surprising to Sansa’s parents and two of her siblings - and Jon himself. “He was betrayed and murdered by his men at Castle Black, but brought back by the Red Witch, Melisandre.” 

Jon and Robb stood, gaping at Bran, while Ned looked as sorrowful as Sansa had ever seen her father. Her own grip tightened, imperceptibly, around Rickon’s shoulders, as she tried not to think of the terrible event. She had seen how heavily that betrayal had weighed on Jon’s soul, for the rest of his days to come.

“The mutiny - it’s the last thing I remember,” Jon said slowly. “My men murdered me, and then I woke up in the godswood.”

Bran nodded. “Melisandre brought you back from death using the magic of the Lord of the Light. I entreated the old gods. I suspect your first resurrection brought something of a conflict.”

“So he doesn’t remember?” Sansa asked softly, refusing to look at Bran. She felt her family’s curiosity and confusion growing with her questions. “He will not remember the life he lived after he was killed by his men?”

“It is unlikely,” Bran responded, his tone even, but his eyes sad, and apologetic. He turned to Jon. “It is possible that you may have flashes - visions, almost - of the life you lead when you rose again. But I doubt you will remember it all.” 

Sansa could not meet anyone’s eyes, nor could she bear to let Bran continue. So she moved onto the next matter weighing on her mind, pinning Bran down with a scrutinizing gaze.

“You say you are no longer the Three-Eyed Raven. Will there be another?” Sansa questioned. She saw Brienne and Pod stiffen out of the corner of her eye, and Arya turned a sharp stare of her own to Bran. They remembered the War for Dawn. They remembered what they had been fighting to defend, and what it had cost them. Sansa saw the reflexive stretch of Arya’s hand, immediately clenched back into a fist, and Sansa knew her sister was imagining a blade clutched between her fingers. The memory must be preserved, Bran had said. Yet here he was, a boy again, and no longer the Three-Eyed Raven.

“There already is,” Bran said. “I began training her in King’s Landing, shortly after my coronation. She will be better than I ever was.” He fell silent, and Sansa knew it was useless to ask him who had become the most knowledgeable woman in Westeros. Perhaps it was better this way. Simply an unnamed woman, slipping into obscurity, nothingness. 

“Bran...you are the king?”

Finally, Catelyn had had enough. She was staring at her son with a mixture of confusion, fear and pride, desperately trying to understand all that had been lost to her in death. 

Bran met her gaze with a tentative smile, and Sansa’s heart beat painfully against her chest, as she realized he was seeking her approval. 

“I  _ was _ the king, Mother. It was decided that the future kings of the Six Kingdoms would be decided, not born. After my death, a new choice was made. Nothing was really established in the case of resurrection.”

“King of the  _ Six  _ Kingdoms?” Robb questioned sharply. 

Bran smiled, wider than Sansa had seen in years, and slowly, the eyes of her family turned to her once more. 

She stood tall and erect, every inch the Northern queen she was, but when she spoke, her voice was soft.

“The North has remained an independent kingdom, as it was for thousands of years.”

* * *

 

**JON:**

Jon was reeling. He felt as he did the time that Theon Greyjoy had managed to get a dirty hit in, and struck Jon across the head with the hilt of his sword while sparring as greenboys. His head had felt heavy, and his ears had rang the same way then too. The entire way to Winterfell, Jon had been silent, following the Starks like a ghost, fighting back images he must have dreamed during his death. Flashes of red and white, and the distant echo of a laugh that seemed familiar, save for the clear anger that was present in the musical sound.

Not wanting to be thought mad, and uncertain what rising from the dead did to one's mind, Jon had kept his mouth shut, and followed the two nights to Winterfell. He had only just managed to keep it together, seeing his childhood home for the first time since departing for the Wall. He had expected it to be in ruins, having heard what Theon, then the Boltons had done. But it stood, proud and tall. Whatever damages had been done, someone had taken great care in seeing to the repairs. There had been places that were clearly still being tended to, Jon could see, but it was impressive, considering the horrors that were rumored to have taken place in the ancestral hall of the House of Stark.

He had been absorbed in his thoughts, unable to pull himself into the present, even to listen to the whispers exchanged between the risen Starks, rejoicing in each other's return. Jon hadn't shaken himself out of his thoughts, until the doors to his father's solar were opened, and he came face to face with his lost sister, Sansa Stark.

_ She's grown _ , was the first thought that crossed Jon's mind. Immediately, he was horrified. This was his  _ sister _ . He had never been as close to Sansa as he had been with Arya, it was true, but she was his sister nonetheless. Jon had missed her dearly, just as he had missed his other siblings. His sister was alive, and he ought to feel nothing but relief and joy at the sight of her, standing healthy and seemingly unharmed, yet Jon was standing in the doorway, gaping at the young woman she had become.

When Jon had last seen her, she was a girl of three and ten, he had thought in a daze.  _ Now she is a queen _ . Jon's voice was silent, even as the others swelled with cries of shock and pride, as they absorbed the news.  _ I could have told you she was queen in the North _ , Jon thought petulantly. Another image flashed across his eyes, of bronze crowned red, slashes of pale, scarred skin, angry eyes burning with a heat Jon could feel licking across his skin. It was gone as quickly as it came, and Jon shook his head to rid himself of the traitorous thoughts.

_ Sansa is my sister _ , he reminded himself firmly. Of course he had noticed how she had changed and grown. Jon would allow himself that indulgence - it was ordinary. Even Robb had noticed what a beautiful woman his sister had become. There was never any doubt among the North that Sansa would be the great beauty of the house. But Jon doubted anyone had ever imagined she would turn into a vision of the Maiden herself - a goddess most Northerners did not even worship.

She was tall. That had been the first thing Jon noticed. She had always been tall as a child, but now she stood at least as tall as him, if not taller. Her dress - far more Northern in style than any of the gowns she had worn as a child - did nothing to hide natural curves of her body, and Jon forced himself to look away, swallowing down his shame. Her hair was even brighter than he remembered.  _ Fire kissed _ . His heart did not ache when he thought of another fire-kissed woman, but he could not banish the thought of haunting blue eyes from his mind. Eyes he could easily drown in.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Jon took a deep breath, and willed the thoughts away. He had been startled to see Sansa, so different from before. That was all. His heart leapt in his chest out of joy, excitement to see the last Stark. He wished nothing more to take her into his arms, and hold her close to his chest, but had he not done that in the godswood with Arya? Even his own mind recoiled from the comparison, and Jon gritted his teeth in desperation. Base-born meant baser instincts. It was what he had always been told as a child, but never something he believed. Not until he stared at his sister's face, and fought back desires that would have him cursed before the old gods and the new.

_ What has happened to me? _ Jon thought despairingly. He had barely followed Bran's explanation - too busy trying to understand that there had been an entire  _ life _ he lived that he would not remember, too busy trying not to give into the lustful thoughts he felt regarding his own sister - but perhaps the gods had not been quite so kind in their actions. Perhaps something within Jon had twisted. Perhaps some of the darkness and rancor of death had clung to his heart, even as he now lived.

Jon looked up, and found himself on the receiving end of Sansa's piercing blue gaze. He was struck by how guarded her eyes appeared. She had been difficult to read as a child, but usually there was some contempt or derision leveled his way - though at times, Jon would have sworn he saw something he could have called amusement, hidden behind her sneers. Now though, her face was utterly impassive, impossible to read. She was like the Wall itself, and Jon longed to know what secrets she held.

"It has been a long day already," Sansa said decidedly, tearing her gaze away from Jon, and leaving him sadder for it. "We should retire to our chambers."

Slowly, the Starks nodded their assent. Though it was impossible to tell in Ned's -  _ Sansa's _ \- solar, since the curtains were drawn, it was only midday. But Jon felt a certain exhaustion that had settled in his bones, and he knew his family felt the same. Pursing her lips, Sansa nodded toward the lady knight, Ser Brienne.

"Brienne, please escort my family to the chambers." She paused for a moment, and looked stricken. Jon frowned, wondering what had brought about the expression, until Bran spoke up.

"Give Mother and Father the chambers you had prepared for me, in case I ever visited. Rickon and I will share his old chambers."

Of course. Sansa was now queen in the North. She had of course taken the chambers that had once belonged to the Lord and Lady of Winterfell."

Buoyed by Bran's suggestion, Sansa nodded. "Yes. Ser Davos will not arrive for another fortnight. Robb can have his chambers until then." 

Robb was the one to frown, and Jon's breath caught in his throat. Did Robb mean to challenge Sansa? His heart suddenly lurched, as he realized that Robb had been named king in the North. The thought was clearly on the mind of Lady Stark, who shifted uncomfortably where she stood.

"Is Jon to share my chambers then?" There was a thread of annoyance in Robb's voice, but Jon felt an unexpected surge of gratitude towards his half-brother. Robb had no intention of fighting over a crown - at least, not today - but rather it was a familiar sense of injustice. He was frustrated with Sansa for seemingly leaving Jon out, though Jon was hardly surprised.

"No," Sansa said shortly, and everyone turned to stare at her. "Jon has his own chambers."

The air seemed heavy with tension, and Jon swallowed. For the briefest moment, he met Sansa's gaze again. He thought he saw something flicker behind her icy blue eyes, but as soon as it appeared, it was gone. 

"Brienne, please escort my family. Father, I ask you stay with me. There is something we need to discuss." Sansa's voice carried the authority of a ruler - one who was used to giving just and intentional commands. Ned Stark nodded, and moved forward, as the rest of the family began shuffling out of the solar, following Ser Brienne and Ser Podrick. Jon glanced back, one last time, only to find that Sansa had turned away. His questions would have to wait for another time.

* * *

 

**NED:**

The door shut softly behind his family, and Ned turned, quietly appraising his eldest daughter. 

Ned was a quiet man. It was repeated oft, both in and out of his presence. At first, many had doubted that he would ever manage to please the spirited young Southron woman he had taken as his bride. He was quiet in voice and spirit, and slow to act. Many claimed it as a weakness. Ned allowed them to, though he had never considered it a weakness himself. He was careful with his words, and perhaps a bit too guarded with his affections, but he loved his family more than he loved his own life. Each one had a special place in his heart. He had a special bond with each child, one he wouldn't trade for the world.

Sansa was his first girl. The day she had been born, Ned had commanded the bells of Winterfell ring long past sundown. Catelyn had been nervous, it was plain to see, when she presented him with a daughter, swaddled tightly, and held in her exhausted arms. Ned knew there had been some disappointment among the people of the North - an heir and a spare, it always provided some comfort - but Ned wouldn't hear of it. His marriage to Catelyn had not been easy - made more difficult by another woman's babe, raised in her own home. But she tried. Gods, Ned hadn't gone a single day without cursing his older brother for a fool, and silently thanking the gods that he had been given Catelyn all the same. They had begun building their love, slowly, steadily, surely. It was then that Catelyn told him, a quiet whisper at night, that she was again with child. A child she was certain was a girl. Ned had wept that night, and held his wife close. He had imagined a small girl, with fierce blue Tully eyes like her mother, and dark hair, as wild as Ned's beloved sister. A daughter they could call Lyanna, the knight of the Laughing Tree reborn. 

And then his daughter had been placed in Ned's arms. Ned could see the small tuft of hair already gathered on her head, and it was a shock of red, just like her mother's. Her face, her lips - there wasn't a trace of his sister there. Ned's heart swelled the more for it. Sansa Stark, the Lord and Lady of Winterfell had decided. For the daughter of Rickon, a wolf as quiet as Ned, if the rumors were to be believed, but as dangerous as Lyanna. Ned had named his daughter for a different Stark, and he prayed that she would never know the cruelties his sister had endured in her short life. From the moment he had set his eyes upon his daughter, Ned had sworn to protect her. It was a vow he had sworn to all of his children. It was a vow he had failed. 

Standing in front of him now, Ned was startled by the resemblance to his long dead sister. Sansa's face had not grown to carry any of Lyanna's likeness. She was far taller than his sister had ever been, and her patrician nose belonged to Ned, not Lyanna - a fact he was inordinately proud of. 

It was not her appearance that reminded Ned of Lyanna, but the way she carried herself, the sorrows she carried in her eyes. Ned felt bile in the back of his throat. The gods had not listened to his prayers, it seemed. They had not spared Sansa from suffering.

"I must make a confession and an apology first," Sansa said softly, and Ned's brow furrowed. His daughter was queen in the North, and looked it, but for the moment, standing in front of him, left hand fidgeting with her dress in a subtle way he was certain she didn't even realize, she looked like a young girl again. A young girl Ned hadn't watched grow. 

"What is it child?" He winced as soon as he spoke. Sansa was no child anymore. A woman of four and twenty now, a queen of a kingdom she had no doubt fought for in some manner. 

She swallowed, and Ned felt his concern grow within him.

"I am the reason you were killed."

It would have been more surprising if Sansa had picked up a blade herself, and attempted to knock him back with it. Ned stared at her, aghast, his frown nearly permanent on his face. "Sansa, what are you talking about."

She swallowed again, and Ned's heart broke when he realized she was fighting back tears. “I told Cersei your plans. I-I was afraid of leaving King’s Landing, I didn’t - I didn’t want to leave Joffrey. So I told her what you planned to do. I wanted her to make you stay.”

The words poured forth from Sansa’s mouth, and Ned realized just what she had been carrying in her gentle heart for so long. 

"Oh sweet girl. Come here." Sansa was the queen, it was true, and a woman grown, but still she hurried into her father's arms, allowing him to draw her close, and hold him tightly against his chest. He closed his eyes, and pressed his lips to the top of her head gently, before pulling back, just enough for him to gaze into his daughter's eyes. Placing two fingers underneath her chin, and tilting it up, Ned met her gaze with his own.

"Sansa, you were a girl. You were three and ten. I was the one who chose to go to Cersei. My honor was more important than getting you and your sister out of King's Landing. You were just a girl, sweet one. If there is to be anyone who is called a fool, it is I."

"But -"

"Did you swing the blade?" Ned asked his daughter softly. Sansa swallowed. "Did you give the command to take my head? There are many to blame for my death Sansa. I suspect there are many to be blamed for important deaths all over this land. But you were not responsible for mine. Do not let yourself suffer under this burden any longer. It is not yours to bear."

Ned's words seemed to lift a weight off of Sansa's shoulders, and she took a deep breath. Ned felt her body shudder in his arms, and he closed his eyes, pressing another kiss to her forehead, before pulling away.

He took the opportunity to examine her. Ned wondered if he might ever tire of looking at his daughter, in all of her stately glory, and he knew the answer at once. Sansa Stark had been born to be a queen. It was a thought Catelyn and Ned had chuckled over, when at only three years old, Sansa was more than capable of hosting lessons on courtesy, rather than receiving them. She was a lady, every bit of her. Ned had never doubted that she would make a wonderful queen. He had always imagined it for her. Perhaps it was that foolish dream that spurred him to accepting the betrothal Robert had proposed to him, all those years ago in the crypts of this very home. He had his reservations about Joffrey, even then, but he had been certain that Sansa would make a good queen. He had been foolish, and thought that perhaps Sansa could have tempered the worst of Joffrey's inclinations. She would have ruled with kindness, and she would have been beloved by her people.

But Ned was a fool, and his daughter had clearly suffered for it.

Everything Ned had seen thus far only confirmed what he had long ago thought. His daughter was an excellent queen. She remained a dutiful lady, courteous to the last. But she carried herself with the stance of a warrior, one that had seen great sorrows. Ned wished he could banish the sadness from her eyes, but it was the horrible truth that such sorrows had likely shaped Sansa into the queen she was today. It did not change the fact that no harm should have ever befallen his little girl. 

And yet he couldn't help but be proud of the steel he saw in her gaze. He had seen hints of it before, in the middle of fiery fights with her younger sister, but now Sansa's very being seemed to be made of the same Valyrian steel as his sword. In fact, Ned couldn't help but draw the comparison between his daughter and Ice itself. For all of her childhood interest in the South, the Sansa that stood before him was every inch a Northern woman. Even her own mother had often worn some tribute to her Tully ancestors on her Northern dresses. But Sansa stood tall in a grey damask dress with a high collar, and long sleeves. Most of her pale skin was covered in the House Stark colors, with expertly stitched direwolves running across the hem of her dress, and drifts of snow falling from the weirwood trees embroidered along her sleeves. 

_ I'm so proud of you, sweet one _ , Ned thought to himself.  _ I'm so proud of the woman you have become _ .

He had been proud of the girl she had been, and his heart only swelled in front of the young queen she became.

Sensing that there was more Sansa needed to say, Ned gave her a kind smile. His smiles were hard won, he had been told, but not for his children. Not for Sansa. She deserved every kindness he could offer. He had not given her his protection, but he swore now to give her his kindness for the rest of his days. 

"You said that was the first matter. You wish to speak with me further?"

The queen stepped back, and took another breath, standing up taller, and straighter. Ned realized this was no longer his daughter he was speaking to, but his queen. He waited patiently, refusing to give into the anxiousness that was building in the back of his mind.

"Yes. Father, I must speak with you about Jon."

Ned's heart plummeted, but he kept his face as expressionless as possible. Sansa seemed unimpressed, and he wondered if he would ever be able to fool his second born child again.

"What about Jon?"

"I know who he is."

* * *

 

**SANSA:**

Sansa let out a heavy sigh, as she finally shut the door to her solar, and began the journey to the royal apartments. They were hardly the lavish suites that Sansa had remembered from King's Landing, but she had been convinced to allow some luxury into Winterfell. She had been reluctant, following the Long Night, and the longer winter, but Sansa was all too familiar with appearances and perception. As the first queen in the North, and the first ruler of peace since the North was conquered by the Targaryens, Sansa needed to be  _ seen _ as queen, not just declared one. In certain respects, she could not simply carry out her life as if she was merely the Warden of the North. Her people, while certainly not fond of the Southron kind and their ways, would expect for Sansa to appear and act like royalty. Part of that meant having royal apartments at Winterfell.

Considering the rebuilding that had still needed attending, it had been quite easy to manage. Sansa simply had her parents' old chambers, and the two surrounding them set a bit apart from the rest of Winterfell, and included an extra fur, or even a painting. But they were  _ called _ royal, and they would be good enough, should the Southron king ever visit. They were fine enough accommodations for her parents, though it made Sansa's heart leap into her throat at the thought of them being so close.

She pushed the fear aside. They would make their discovery, soon enough, and it was only right that Catelyn and Ned use the chambers set aside for a king. They had produced two kings and a queen themselves. 

Sansa sighed again. Podrick was walking a few feet behind her, giving her a respectful amount of distance and privacy, while still keeping a close eye on any threats that might have lurked around the corners, or sulked in the shadows. She wished for solitude, but she would not begrudge Podrick for doing his job. She was grateful for him. Still, Sansa wished to pause, to bend over and clutch her chest, to make sure that her heart was still between her ribs, to make sure that her lungs were indeed still breathing air and not fire. She had known that Bran was meddling with magic. She had known that he spoke of restoring the House of Stark. But she hadn't been prepared for this. Nothing could have prepared her.

The entire Stark family, risen before her eyes. She could scarcely wrap her mind around it, and she knew they were struggling as well. Thank the gods for Arya and Bran. They had known her, in the great after. They had been hardened and changed by the winter as well, and they had seen what it had done to her. She had changed in the Years of Rebirth as well, but she felt a kinship with Arya that she did not feel with the others, not yet. They were strangers. The Starks had returned as her family, but strangers.

Even Jon.

She paused. Behind her, she heard Podrick pause as well, and she could hear the hesitation in his silence, as she reached out to touch the wall beside her, steadying herself. She knew he fretted, the same as Brienne. They had both cautioned her, concerned that she was taking on too much at once, before she was fully ready to resume the brutal pace she had set for herself before. She just needed a moment, only a moment. She closed her eyes, and breathed in. She exhaled.

And Sansa Stark resumed her journey.

 

Reaching the royal apartments, Sansa paused at the first of three doors, the one to the chambers her parents were currently occupying. Sansa considered knocking, and speaking to her mother before giving into the call of sleep, but she thought better of it. She had whispered voices behind the door, and she knew it best to give Ned some distance. His face had been stony when she told him, in plain terms, that he was to tell Jon and the rest of the Starks the truth of Jon's parentage. In their past life, that had been robbed from both Jon and Ned. Her mother had never been allowed to know that her husband had kept his honor, nor had she faced any recrimination for her treatment of her husband's purported son. Sansa would see those wrongs righted, and she had told Ned that they would be righted by nightfall of the next day. Ned had been unhappy, but accepted the task she had set before him. Sansa would not disturb her parents. It seemed that she had been given the gift of time, and she would use it to her advantage.

Sansa moved past the door to her parents' chambers, and strode past the middle door, leading to the chambers she had claimed for herself. This time she did not pause, instead walking straight into the third set of chambers, to the right of her own, the smallest of the royal apartments. The moment she stepped inside, a chill settled over her. It was silent and cold, with no fire in the hearth, and nary a soul in sight. Empty. 

Fighting back the rising panic, Sansa quickly pulled the door shut to the third set of chambers, and made her way to her own, pushing open the door. Instantly, she let out a sigh of relief. Reaching behind her to pull the door shut, she met Podrick's concerned gaze, and gave him a small smile and nod. He would stand duty for the night, waiting for another member of the Queensguard to relieve him at the break of dawn. Sansa knew he would not leave, even if she herself were to relieve him of this duty, but he was not needed tonight.

There, at the foot of her bed, was a large white direwolf, with red eyes. 

Ghost had arrived at Winterfell before the raven bearing the news. Sansa had known when she saw him, though she had not allowed her heart to truly break, until the letter had been placed in her hands. She had spent what felt like a sennight crying into the direwolf's fur, desperately trying to sew the gaping hole she felt in her chest. Sansa had always been a talented seamstress, and during the Great War, she had learned the art of sewing skin back together. But even she had no idea how to repair the damage wrought to her heart by yet another death. 

She had been surprised that Ghost had traveled down to Winterfell. A part of her had always assumed he would remain north of the Wall, were Jon to ever fall - though Sansa hadn't ever liked to entertain such thoughts. A month later, Sansa had been less surprised, but more heartbroken for it. The people of Winterfell had grown accustomed to seeing their queen accompanied by the white direwolf that had once belonged to their king. 

Sansa smiled at the wolf who watched her with soulful eyes, and she reached over, gently patting his head. "He's returned to us, Ghost," Sansa said in a whisper, bending down so her voice was muffled by his fur. "You may go to him, if you wish." The direwolf did not move, but simply glanced back at the bed, and Sansa smiled again, softer than any of the others she had given.

Moving carefully to the side of the bed, Sansa crouched down, and allowed her finger to gently trail across a delicate cheek, covered in messy, dark red curls. Sansa's stared at the sleeping child curled in her bed, her hand wrapped around the wooden sword she had received for her nameday, mouth ajar - before letting her gaze drift to the tiny babe, still so small, wrapped in thick furs, snuffling in the cradle that had been placed beside her bed.

"Goodnight my loves," Sansa said softly, pressing the barest of kisses to the forehead of her daughter, and then her son. "There is much to tell you tomorrow."

There was much to say. Sansa wished to meet with her mother first, she decided. There was news the mother of wolves would share with the mother of kings.

"There are many stories I would share with you tomorrow."

For tonight,  _ sleep _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did that answer some questions? regarding the process of actually being resurrected/what bran actually did, this chapter is about as detailed as i'm going to get with that. writing about the magic ritual wasn't really what interested me, at least, not as much as the _why_ and the havoc it would bring. as always, comments and kudos are greatly appreciated, and you can always find me on [tumblr](http://joygreys.tumblr.com)!
> 
> next chapter: robb pov! cat pov! finding out about r+l=j!


	3. you hover like a hummingbird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You are a Stark of Winterfell," Sansa said softly, her words traveling the uncertain abyss between them, and making Jon's flesh chill with the intensity of her voice. "This is your home. For now, and for always."

**CAT:**

The sept was empty, except for Catelyn Stark, but it was filled with ghosts.

Catelyn had known the moment she stepped in the Sept, that it was hardly used. The Southron gods were not popular in the North, and once, she had been as unpopular as the gods she prayed to each night. Her bosom friends had warned her about the North and their ways.  _ Savages _ , they had whispered, with careful glances they thought went unnoticed by the then-Tully girl. She had known what was said of the North, and Catelyn had not cared. She had declared her love for Brandon Stark, to her family that worried their lips over a Tully-girl swimming so far upstream. She had held her chin high, for she loved the man she was to marry. And then she was not to marry him anymore, but she was still to go North, for she was a Tully, and though she would soon leave behind her name, she would never leave behind her words.  _ Family. Duty. Honor. _ It mattered not that the man she loved had died. House Stark was the family she had chosen, and she would do her duty and honor the marriage betrothal. Doing so would bring her honor.

She had arrived to Winterfell with her head still held high, her words echoing in her mind, spine steeled with determination, and she had been married in a godswood, in front of a strange heart tree, before gods that she had never kept to, and she did not weep. Later that night, before bringing her to the somber feast that had been pieacemealed together in rapid fashion, Eddard Stark, now Lord of Winterfell, brought her to an entranceway that she had not noticed during her tour of Winterfell. Catelyn had stared for a moment, before gasping.

Eddard Stark had built her a sept.

"It is not complete," he had rumbled in a slow, quiet voice, "But I had hoped you would oversee its construction." He paused, and swallowed. "I know you do not worship the Old Gods. I know this is not what you wanted. But I hope this can be your home." It was the most Catelyn had ever heard Ned Stark say. The quiet wolf, people called him. Some of the particularly cruel knights of Riverrun had insisted he was slow, but Catelyn had been raised better than to listen to such idle, petty words. She had not thought much on Ned Stark, even upon learning that he was to be her husband, but she had not thought him slow. Now she thought him kind. Brandon had never made mention of constructing a sept at Winterfell. The few interactions Catelyn had had with the Northerners prior to her wedding hinted that Ned's decision would not be a popular one among his people, and yet he had done it.  _ For her _ .

She had swallowed, and spoke in equally soft terms. "I am Catelyn Stark now, my Lord. Winterfell is the home of the Starks."

Eddard had given her a small smile, so quick that it abandoned his face, leaving it as sorrowful and drawn as it had been before. Catelyn thought him handsome, even through the grief he wore so plain. "You are my wife now. It is only fitting that you call me Ned."

Catelyn had given Ned a smile, a wide, striking thing. Catelyn had heard the many compliments regarding her beauty, but it was her father who always insisted Catelyn's smile was truly singular. She liked to think that in that moment, Ned Stark had seen it too.

"Then you must call me Cat."

Here in the now another broken sob passed over Cat's lips, and she bowed her head, eyes shut tightly to prevent the tears from falling. It was this very sept that Ned had built, that Catelyn had finished. It had made her feel like more of a Stark, for all that it separated her from the Northern folk who were now her people. The Stark legacy was one of building. Catelyn had never been a builder herself, never interested in stacking stones and wooden blocks like her brother, but she would build a family, a life. She had started with the sept, and she had known that she and Ned would build together.

This was the sept that Catelyn had hastily retreated to when Ned Stark returned from the South, with sorrow in his eyes, and a babe in his hands. Catelyn had been ashamed of her behavior, the way her tongue had stumbled over the appropriate greeting for the victorious lord, returned to Winterfell. She had all but shoved poor Robb into his arms, with barely a word about his son, and picked up her skirts and fled to the sept. The Northern lords would think her weak for it, she had known even then, but she hadn't cared. She was  _ Southron _ . She was a Tully girl, far from the home she had always known, and the comfort she had clutched close to her chest at night, was in the fact that Ned Stark was said to be the most good and honorable man throughout all of Westeros. And yet he had come to her, carrying another woman's babe, informing her that his bastard son was to be raised in the home that was supposed to be  _ their's _ . 

Catelyn had regretted hurrying off without Robb, only because her lord husband did not deserve to hold him. Robb was  _ her's _ , she thought in a vicious prayer to the Mother. Ned had not been there when she anxiously sought out Maester Luwin for confirmation. He had not been there to feel the first kicks, to hold Catelyn's hand when Maester Luwin's face became long, and his brow furrowed with worry. He had not been outside the birthing chambers when Cat felt as though her body was being split open, as if she might die on the birthing bed. He had not been there. Her mind had wondered, traitorous in its hurtful thoughts, if Ned had been there for  _ her _ . For the woman who had born him his bastard son. Jon Snow.

Now, in the present - or future - Catelyn's sobs echoed around the sept once more. She had wept many tears over Jon Snow in these walls. These were the first tears that fell over Aegon Targaryen. 

Cat had once thought that she would never feel a betrayal as keen as the one dealt to her by her husband, so soon into their marriage. They had managed to build something beautiful between the two of them, it was true, but it had taken time. Catelyn knew many suspected there had been children between Robb and Sansa, lost to the circumstances of winter and the hardships of pregnancy. There had been none. Perhaps if Ned had not shown her that kindness, the night of their wedding, it might not have hurt as deeply as it did. Catelyn would have been humiliated by her husband's bastard, and the way he flaunted him about, but perhaps she would have been saved the  _ hurt _ , if only Ned had not convinced her to love him, before learning to love her himself. 

Yet it was a  _ lie _ . It had all been a lie. Rage threatened to bubble over, mixing with the sorrow, and Catelyn lifted her trembling fingers to press against the base of her throat, as if she could physically hold back the grief that threatened to tear through her flesh and  _ howl _ like the wolf she had become. Ned had lied to her. Jon Snow was no bastard at all, and certainly not the bastard of Ned Stark, but that did change the fact that Ned Stark had betrayed her. Her marriage had been built on the back of a lie, and that - 

Catelyn didn't know how to forgive that.

She had forgiven Ned for his indiscretion, eventually. She had learned to love him again, and they had quietly and slowly begun to build something from the ruins of death, rebellion, and betrayal. The day that her daughter had been born had been the happiest of her life, though Catelyn would never admit it, but in the silence of her thoughts. She loved all of her children in equal measure, but Sansa represented the union between Lord and Lady Stark. She had been the first child born from the love they had determinedly built. Catelyn had learned forgiveness. 

But this? Catelyn had  _ hated _ Jon Snow, and Ned had let her. She would not place her sins at her husband's feet, for they were her own to atone for, but she would not absolve him of his either. He spoke as though he had been acting in the interest of the realm, and Cat had wanted to scream. What good had Ned's decision brought the realm? She wouldn't have wanted the boy dead, but why had Ned insisted on claiming the dishonor as his own? The sons of Winterfell would have done anything for their sister, even long after she had been placed in the crypts of Winterfell. Why had Ned not passed off Jon as Benjen's bastard, sired before he took the black? Or Brandon's, before his death? Such a lie would have hurt Catelyn, but she would have moved past it. It wouldn't have affected  _ them _ . 

Shame filled Catelyn as she realized that those lies, while preferable to her, would have been lies still. Ned would have lied to her to protect his sister's son, and he had done so in the way that felt the most honorable to him.  _ Family. Duty. Honor. _ Ned Stark lived by the Tully words, even if his own mouth was a prophet of winter. 

She could understand, perhaps, that Ned felt it necessary to lie to Cat, to protect his sister's son. They had known each other for scarcely a week, and though he had built her a sept, and Catelyn had given her a son, that was not enough to build the trust necessary to share the act of  _ treason _ \- a secret that could shatter the Seven Kingdoms. At first, he couldn't have trusted Cat.

But had he ever truly trusted her, in all their years of marriage?

When Catelyn went on to bear her husband two more sons and two daughters, had that not been enough for Ned to trust her? When she kept his confidence and allowed him to share every secret, every mark of grief and pain, had he withheld his trust even then? When she had lashed out at the bastard who was a living mark of her humiliation flaunted in front of her very face, had Ned looked at her and seen only what he suspected all along? That she was not a woman he could trust? Had the oath he swore to his long-dead sister been more important than the numerous oaths he swore to his wife over the years, swearing before his gods and hers, that he would bring her no dishonor?  _ Family. Duty. Honor. _

Ned had kept to those words. But he had chosen a different family. He had done his duty to the Starks, and not counted her one of them. He had brought only dishonor. 

Swallowing down the rage she felt, Catelyn bowed her head further, offering her final prayers, mouthing the words that her lips could not speak aloud. She stood, after a time, her knees screaming in protest from where they had been pressed onto the cold stone floor for what felt like hours. She glanced around the sept once more, and wondered at its construction. It was different from how she remembered. Parts had been changed, rebuilt. What little Catelyn had learned of life after her death had included whispers of the destruction of Winterfell. She had seen some of its brokenness with her own eyes. And yet the sept stood. Catelyn wondered if her daughter still visited, still kept to the new gods, along with the old. The sept had seemed unused, but it remained a part of Winterfell. It had obviously been shown care and reverence, and an eye for detail that could only have been the mark of her daughter - the queen in the North. Catelyn wondered if Sansa ever visited after instruction the repairs be made, and guiding the architects in the memory of her childhood worship. 

Cat very much doubted it. She doubted the Seven ever touched the coldness of the North. It seemed that all of her prayers over the years, had been for naught, for they had been whispered into an unforgiving wind that carried words as carelessly as dust.

* * *

 

 

**JON:**

The crypts of Winterfell were silent, but the ghosts of the past howled loud enough to drown out even the shouting of Jon's own mind.

He did not recall his feet carrying him down the stone steps into the vault that honored the dead Starks of generations past. He did not recall anything, past pushing open the door to his father's solar - his sister's solar now, and stumbling his way through the castle, barely able to understand his racing thoughts.

Not his father. Not his sister. His  _ uncle _ . His  _ cousin _ .

The words were ash in his mouth. Everything Jon had ever known was a lie. He had heard of ladies wearing courtesy as their armor, a whisper of a memory that Jon was not certain was his own. Well Jon had worn Ned Stark's claim as his own armor of sorts. It had earned him the wrath of Lady Stark, but he had taken quiet pride in the fact that he was the son of Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell, an honorable man, even if Jon's very existence had threatened that reputation.

Now it was all for naught. Jon was no bastard. No son of Ned Stark's. He was the son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen. A wolf and a dragon, wed in secret. The dragon prince that had been lost.

Jon felt bile mixing in with the ash.

_ "This cannot be." Jon stared at Ned Stark, waiting for him to insist that this had been a cruel jape, or some twist of whatever magic had brought them here. But Ned simply stared at him mournfully, as if he could undo a lifetime of lies with simply his sadness. "Why are you telling me this?" Jon demanded. "Why now? Why, after everything, are you telling me the truth, when you were so content to let me believe I was nothing more than a stain upon your honor?" Jon's voice had risen, and his anger burned hot under his veins. Was it the price he had unwillingly paid to the Red Woman's god, to be resurrected? Or was this the truth of his birth, fire and blood, coursing through him, intermingled with the ice of the coming winter? _

_ "Sansa." The name was like a bolt of lightning racing down Jon's spine. "She knows. Everyone in the Seven - the Six Kingdoms and the North - they all know."  _

_ Jon's hands clenched by his sides. Everyone knew but him. He was the last to learn of his  _ mother _ , his  _ father _. It was an unfair accusation, and only that knowledge staid Jon's tongue. Ned Stark had taken that secret to his grave. It had been exposed to the harsh light long after his death. No one had expected for the Starks to rise again from the supposed permanence of death.  _

_ "Do not be angry with her," Ned instructed quietly, misreading Jon's expression. "She wanted to give me the opportunity to right this wrong. I was not the one to tell you in our previous life. She wanted to make sure you heard from no other lips, before I spoke with you." _

_ "I'm not angry with  _ her _ ," Jon snarled, refusing to let the darkness of his thoughts creep in.  _ Cousin, not sister _.  _

_ He wasn't angry with Sansa, not for this, but his anger towards his  _ uncle  _ was palpable. And Ned did nothing to alleviate it. He simply stood, as if his laconic speech could lift the years of hurt and uncertainty that Jon had carried with him since before he had been old enough to understand the circumstances of his birth. _

Now, standing in the crypts of Winterfell, staring at the statue of his  _ mother _ , Jon felt his anger fade ever so slightly, into something that closer resembled the feeling of despair.  _ Why? _ It was the question he was left with, a question that would bring him only half-answers and no satisfaction? Why had his uncle lied? Ned had explained himself, but it wasn't enough. Why had his  _ mother _ and  _ father _ acted the way they had? They were in love. Why had they launched the world into a war it wasn't yet prepared for? 

These traitorous thoughts dueled for dominance in Jon's mind, and he realized he was gripping the hilt of his sword with such force, he felt a pain in his hand. Yet he could not force his fingers to unclench, and his grip only tightened to steady the tremble of his body.

It wasn't long before Jon heard the echo of footsteps across the stone floor. He had expected this. His father -  _ uncle _ , had told him with sadness that he would be informing the rest of the Starks soon. Jon had imagined he would do it at first light, but he doubted sleep had come easily to any of them. Perhaps Ned had gathered his family together to share one last truth, before sending them off on their ways to grapple with another shock. The footsteps came to a halt several feet behind Jon, and he closed his eyes.

He didn't know how he knew it was her. Robb and Arya were both equally likely to pay him visit, upon learning the news - though it seemed likely Arya already knew. She had died not too long ago, so perhaps the news had found her on her travels. Those had always been the siblings Jon had been closest to, but it was Sansa here now. Jon had recognized her presence in the crypts before he had heard her footsteps. Jon was certain he would recognize her anywhere.

Sansa and Jon had never been close as children. She had always been endlessly polite, but was always apart. She was the darling of Winterfell, the apple of Lady Stark's eye. Jon's presence couldn't be seen sullying the reputation of the girl who was destined to make the best match of all the Stark children. And even then, Jon had known the importance of making a good match. Jon had been attentive to his lessons, and even occasionally paid attention during the monotonous instruction on the highborn lords and ladies of Westeros. The marriage of Lord and Lady Stark had been strong, and united several of the Great Houses and allies. The pool of men with high enough stations to be wed had been small for Sansa Stark, and smaller still, was the list of men who would be considered good enough for Ned Stark's daughter. That awareness had always felt heavy in Jon's mind, and the two had stayed apart. Sansa had always seemed like one of the Southron paintings she loved so much - beautiful, distant, and not for baseborn eyes or hands. Not like Arya, the young wild one with adventure in her eyes, who tumbled in the yards with him. Arya had always been a true sister to Jon, while Sansa had been the beautiful lady he was not worthy to look at.

And now she was a queen, and Jon was a secret prince.

The air felt heavy, and the desire to break the oppressive silence overtook Jon.

"Don't worry," he said, his voice hoarse and stringent, "I may be the rightful king of the Seven Kingdoms, but the North is yours."

There was a beat of silence, and Jon chanced a glance at his sister-turned-cousin. Her lips were parted ever so slightly, blue eyes blown wide with surprise, flickering in the torchlight of the underground crypts. Jon's heart beat wildly in his chest, and for a moment he was terrified. What kind of idiot was he, saying something that could be considered  _ treason _ -

She laughed.

It was not the full belly laugh of her brother that so easily rang out in the halls of Winterfell with such frequency that it haunted Jon long after his death. Nor was it the more delicate tinkle of a lady, the kind of laugh that Jon had heard on a handful of occasions, when he had been close enough to the Lady Sansa to hear her laugh. No, it was a soft, breathless thing. Her laughs had once been girlish and breathy, as though the whimsy of her laugh alone would sweep her off into a song of knights and dragons. Now it was more of a huff, an expulsion of air after a blow to the chest that left her as surprised as Jon.

"The crown doesn't quite work that way anymore," Sansa said simply, without offering further explanation. Jon looked at her again, his brow furrowing into old habits.

"I won't be expected to take the throne?"

"No." Sansa did not meet his gaze. "The Iron Throne is gone. A king will be chosen, but...it won't be you. You will never be king." There was a certainty to Sansa's voice, as familiar as Ned's, and Jon felt his body relax, releasing a tension he had not realized he was holding.

"Good." He hadn't allowed his thoughts to stray down such treacherous paths, but the truth of his birth had raised questions. Questions that Jon had not wanted to consider. His cruel, boyhood fantasies of being legitimized and taking Robb's birthright as the heir to Winterfell had been just that. The petty dreams of a boy.  _ "Kill the boy," _ Maester Aemon had told him,  _ "And let the man be born." _ Jon had done it, and he had died himself. He was no longer the sullen bastard-boy of Winterfell, lurking in the shadows.

Nor was Sansa Stark the untouchable, empty-headed girl who had dreamed of knights and songs. Now she was a queen.

Jon flushed, grateful for the shadows that hid the color spreading across his face. His thoughts, while silent, were uncharitable. Sansa had never been empty-headed, and their various tutors over their youth had made sure all the children of Winterfell knew it, so often they were held in comparison to Sansa, for everything except for figures. During their childhood, Jon had allowed Arya's complaints - and there had been many - to shade his own thoughts on his aloof, redheaded sister. They had been unfair and unkind even then. Sansa  _ had _ been silly, but no sillier than Jon and Robb and Theon Greyjoy had been at that age, prancing about and dreaming of battle and war. They had issued battlecries the way Sansa's mouth had delicately formed the words to the songs she loved. They had been children, and children indulged in the luxury of silliness. 

"I thought of you, you know," For a moment, Jon almost wondered which one of them had broken the silence, before realizing it had been his own voice. "Almost every day since father's death. I was going to break my oath and leave the Wall. I was going to join Robb's army, or I was going to ride to King's Landing and save you and Arya." Jon's mind had oscillated wildly between the two paths, though he had never taken either of them. Jon felt Sansa's intense gaze burning, but he continued, as if in a trance. "I thought about you, and I prayed for you. I know you favored your mother's gods, but I prayed to the old gods for you."

It was more than Jon had ever said to Sansa in one breath, and he wondered what had drawn the words from his chest. Perhaps the knowledge that she was his cousin and not his sister had loosened something in his chest, allowed a tiny crevice to open up, and it was enough for some of the thoughts he kept carefully locked away, to pour forth.

Sansa's gaze was unreadable, when Jon finally looked into her eyes. 

"I pray to the old gods now," Sansa said, her voice soft, and she tore her gaze away from Jon, in favor of stepping closer to the statue of his  _ mother _ . "I pray to the old gods, but my prayers are empty. I stopped believing in the prayers long ago."

Jon frowned. It did not sound like the pious girl he remembered from his youth. "You no longer believe in the gods?"

She let out another huff of laughter, this one hollow and tinged with despair. "I believe in the gods. I simply don't believe they care."

He opened his mouth to probe further, but thought better of it. He watched Sansa close her eyes for the briefest of moments, and Jon wondered if she was issuing an empty prayer even now.

"You did help me."

Jon looked up, staring at Sansa with intensity, but now she appeared to be speaking as if in a trance. 

"Not long after the Red Woman brought you back. I came to Castle Black." She swallowed. "I had been unwillingly wed to Ramsay Bolton." There was a new sharpness in the air, a tension in Sansa's profile that had not been there a moment ago. Jon's fingers curled around the hilt of his sword once again. "I asked for your assistance. We took back Winterfell together." Her words were delivered as plainly as if she had told Jon of the season's harvest - not as if she spoke of a partnership that had returned the stolen home to House Stark. 

He closed his eyes, and for a heartbeat of a moment, he thought he saw the two of them, sitting by a fire in companionable silence, a mug of ale between them, one of Sansa's delicate hands in her lap, the other held in Jon's own. But he opened his eyes and the moment was gone, leaving Jon with more questions yet, and a pair of eyes he could drown in, that radiated none of the warmth he had felt. Was it a memory of a life he had not lived? Or the machinations of his own wishful thinking, conjured up by Sansa's tale of camraderie and implied trust?

"It is late," Sansa was the one to break the silence again, and with it, the unnamed tension that lingered between them. Jon nodded, and watched as Sansa began to retreat. "I want you to know Jon...who your mother is...that doesn't change who  _ you _ are. Not to me." Jon's heart pounded painfully against his ribcage. Everything he had ever wanted, handed to him in a sentence. The very hope that Jon had foolishly allowed to take root in his heart, crushed underneath the weight of her words and the meaning behind them. 

"Thank you," Jon said dully, and Sansa dipped her head. Her pale fingers reached behind her and pulled up her grey, lambswool hood, covering her hair and casting her face into shadows. "Your Grace?" Jon spoke, before he could stop himself, before Sansa could turn to leave. He thought he saw the tiniest frown, but in the blink of an eye her face had smoothed. "Why do I have chambers here?"

Sansa's face was inscrutable, but in the scant light of the torch fire, Jon thought he saw a hint of warmth, a spark of  _ something _ hidden deep in the wells of her Tully-blue eyes.

"You are a Stark of Winterfell," Sansa said softly, her words traveling the uncertain abyss between them, and making Jon's flesh chill with the intensity of her voice. "This is your  _ home _ . For now, and for always."

Without another word, Sansa turned and swept out of the crypts, every inch the regal Northern queen, leaving Jon alone with his thoughts and the cold, lifeless statue of the mother he had never known, but for the few stories in which he had called her  _ aunt _ .

* * *

 

**ROBB:**

Robb Stark woke in his childhood bed, with tears on his cheeks, and a dead woman's name in his mouth.

He was aware of his surroundings before he even truly opened his eyes. He had spent the last years of his life at war. He had known the importance of constant awareness, and he had refused to allow himself to be caught off guard. He was the heir to Winterfell, the first King in the North since Torrhen had knelt to Aegon the Conquerer. The weight of the Northern hopes and ambitions had weighed heavily on Robb's shoulders, and he could not have afforded to be stymied by something as simple as sleep.

More than that even, he knew this bed. He knew Winterfell. It did not matter how long he had been away. It had been a handful of years for Robb, but this strange magic had stretched those years out longer than he would have thought possible. Winterfell had been destroyed, more than once. He saw the truth of it in the repairs still taking placing around the castle, little details that Robb had noticed as the lady-knight had snuck the Stark family into his sister's solar. It didn't matter if Winterfell had been razed to the ground for Sansa to rebuild; this was Robb's home. He knew it. 

But he could not rid his mouth of the bitter taste, the knowledge that it  _ should not have been like this _ . The wrong queen ruled Winterfell. Robb did not begrudge Sansa her position - he couldn't. He had been long dead, and she the last of the Starks. He had been shocked, certainly, to step into Ned Stark's solar, and find his younger sister, who had a head for beautiful songs, and an eye for pretty dresses, standing tall and regal, and as formidable as the Wall itself. The surprise had quickly faded, and Robb had noted with pride how Sansa carried herself. She was not the little girl he remembered from his youth. Winter had made warriors of them all, and of the Starks, it was Sansa - and Sansa alone - who had survived.

Yet he could not help but think of a different queen, one that Robb himself had crowned, with whispered words, and the promise of love and a bright future. Another oath broken by the Young Wolf. 

Closing his eyes, Robb wished he could fall back into the heavy slumber. He had let the tears fall the night before, weeping openly for his dead wife and the babe in her belly, taken so cruelly. Robb deserved the chance to mourn, but who would grant it to him? Talisa Stark and the heir to the North had died years ago, in the minds of everyone but Robb and Catelyn. 

A hand reached up to rub at his eyes, and he let out a groan. He would have to rise. He could not allow himself to linger abed like a child. It may have been only days in Robb's mind, since the Red Wedding, but life waited for no one. Least of all the Starks. 

Although it appeared that the world was no longer at war, and Robb was no longer a king, there was certainly still work to be done. Sansa had instructed her family to keep to the Stark quarters as much as possible while she prepared some sort of explanation to deliver to the Northern lords. Robb would simply find one of his siblings, raised from the dead, and demand answers to the many questions that he had let linger, unasked. Yesterday had been too much, for all of them. Even Sansa had appeared weathered under the scrutinizing gazes of her family come again. Robb's eyes - so similar to Sansa's own - had carefully catalogued the dark purple bruises that spoke of her exhaustion, the fatigue that marred the otherwise straight lines of her figure. Robb too, understood the weight of leadership, and he did not envy his little sister this additional burden. And so he had not pressed the questions that burned at the back of his throat. Nor did he forget them.

Aside from Sansa, it was Arya and Bran who had lived the longest. Jon too, apparently, but he had also died once before. It was another question that begged for reply, but Robb held it at bay, if only to preserve the delicate joy and relief that he suspected would be shattered by the grief of truth. But there were other queries that needed to be addressed. He disliked the way Bran spoke - hardly reminiscent of the little brother Robb had once known. Arya too, with her softly detached voice, as if her very heart had been carved from her body, and she had been left to walk around with a cavern of ice where a bloodied and fierce organ had once pulsed. 

Robb knew time had changed them all. He had changed from the arrogant greenboy he had been upon leaving Winterfell - though, Robb traced the scars on his body with a grimace, perhaps he was still as arrogant as he had once been. He understood that all of them had been forced to shed their childhoods and step into roles that seemed too unwieldy for any, but by the gods, his brother and sister had seemed  _ unrecognizable _ ! Even Sansa, now the queen of the North, had seemed only a grown version of the girl she had once been. Robb had no doubt she had suffered - losing one's family was never easy - but even in her differences, she still reminded him of the young girl who would laugh and plead and beg her brothers and father's ward to play Aemon the Dragonknight, and save her from various made-up evils. 

Arya and Bran though, were impossibly different. Robb felt his stomach lurch to think of what they had endured, and he used the sick feeling to push him out of the comfortable bed he had not thought he would return to, and toward the armoire that - to his surprise - still held some of his clothes. Robb let his fingers trace over a gray tunic, embroidered with direwolves, and wondered after its presence. Why had Sansa left these here? Why had she not cleared these quarters for one of Winterfell's various guests?

Another question added to his list, Robb hastened to dress himself, tugging on his boots, and striding toward the door. The moment he tugged the heavy wooden door open, he was surprised to see what appeared to be a pile of burnt copper curls tumble forward with a soft "oof!"

Robb was not so far removed that he had forgotten the antics of his younger siblings. It took him only a moment to realize that the little girl who had fallen at his feet, had been lingering outside his door, likely eavesdropping. It took another moment for Robb to question  _ why _ , and then -

"Who are you?"

His frown was deep on his face as he watched the little girl straighten herself, pushing back her curls, and holding herself up with an aching familiarity that Robb could not place. He wondered after this girl, and glanced down the corridor to see if he could spot her septa, or perhaps the serving woman who was her mother. But he glanced back and noted the quality of her dress with surprise. It was quite plain and unadorned, but made from a richer fabric, and clearly stitched with care.  _ Highborn then _ , Robb thought with surprise.

"I am Princess Lyarra Stark, Lady of Winterfell," the girl rattled off the titles dutifully, easily remembered on her tongue, and deceptively innocent, for the way they shook Robb.

Lyarra Stark. Lyarra  _ Stark _ . Sansa's daughter. His little sister had a child. This was his  _ niece _ . Robb forced his fists to unclench, and he took a deep breath. Sansa was not a little girl of three and ten anymore. She was a woman grown, a queen. It was her duty to produce heirs. Robb ignored the pained sob that lingered in the back of his throat at the very thought.

_ He had once had an heir. _

The girl - his  _ niece _ \- was now staring at him, expectantly, and Robb realized it was very likely that she had no idea who he was. Even if Sansa had spoken to her daughter of the previous day's events, it was doubtful that Lyarra had ever seen a portrait of her fallen uncle. It was not a familiar custom of the Northerners, and though there may be a statue of Robb somewhere in the crypts - a thought that made him shudder - he was familiar enough with those stone statues to know that little resemblance could be spotted.

"My name is Robb Stark," he said his voice hoarse. "I am your mother's brother."

Lyarra's eyes brightened.  _ Grey _ , Robb noted with wonder. In this light, they almost looked Stark gray in appearance. Lyarra's hair was from the Tully side, darker than Sansa's bright red hair, but with no less luster. She was small, but she would no doubt have the Stark height. Robb swallowed painfully. She was a true Stark. He longed to gather her into his arms, and hold her to his aching chest, as if such a thing could fix the gaping wound of his dead wife and child. But he could not. He could only take comfort in the fact that for everything the Starks had lost, Sansa had won it  _ back _ . She had a husband of her own, a child of her own.

"Like King Robb?" Lyarra demanded, her voice bright with the eagerness that Robb recalled, anytime a bard offered to sing a song in Sansa's presence. "The Young Wolf?" 

Robb's throat was thick, and he could only move his head in a nod, confirming his young niece's excited curiosity. 

"Yes," Robb managed to say, offering no more explanation. It seemed to satisfy Lyarra Stark though, for she gave him a smile, a wide, beaming thing, and Robb felt as if his chest was caving in. Sansa had always been a sweet and lovely child. It had been the worst kept secret of Winterfell that Robb had  _ adored _ her. Catelyn liked to laugh, and tell him of how he had begged her for a little brother, during her pregnancy with Sansa, only to take one look at the quiet babe, and declare Sansa's  _ his _ to guard and protect. He had been her knight, and he had snuck her lemoncakes, and held her softly when she had terrible dreams. Robb had  _ loved _ being Sansa's older brother, but she had grown too soon. The cruel eyes and actions of men had forced his little sister to become a woman long before Robb had ever been ready to give her up as such. Here her daughter stood, beaming brightly, looking for all the world like the Sansa that Robb had lost, not to death, but to time. "Has your mother told me stories, sweetling?"

"No,' Lyarra answered, her curls bouncing as she shook her head. Robb wondered where the curls came from; perhaps Sansa had married an Umber. "Mama doesn't like to talk about you. She gets sad. But Uncle Jon would sometimes tell me stories! He would get sad too, but not as sad as Mama."

Robb inhaled sharply.  _ Uncle Jon _ . So he was familiar to Lyarra, enough to share stories about his long dead brother. "Does Uncle Jon visit often?"

Lyarra's smile dimmed, and Robb wished he had held his tongue. "No. Not really. He's only come twice that I remember. He lives beyond the Wall. Mama said he's not coming anymore, but I think that's stupid." Her face had morphed into an expression so petulant and brooding, Robb might as well have been looking at Arya or Jon, all trussed up and made to dance at a feast neither wanted to be a part of. "He won't even get to  _ meet _ Theon!" 

He froze, anger cooling like ice in his veins, making his fists clench tightly at his sides. "Theon?" His voice was hollow and dark, but it was lost on Lyarra as she nodded her head enthusiastically.

"He's only a babe. He just cries and sleeps, but one day he will speak and run and play with me!" Robb swallowed, trying to fight back the anger that he felt burning hot in his blood at the thought of any  _ Theon _ running about Winterfell ever again.  _ How could she  _ do _ such a thing? _ Robb thought wildly.  _ How could she ever name a babe Theon? _

"I see. And what does your father think?" Robb asked, trying to adopt the knowing tone he had so often heard from his father, growing up. It had been a while since Robb interacted with children. Talisa had worried about it, wanting Robb to practice before the birth of their babe. Robb had laughed her off at the time, insisted he was the oldest of five. He had experience with children and babes, and he would adore their child. Blinking back tears, Robb shook his head, and focused on his niece, who simply shrugged.

"I don't have a father."

Robb allowed the sadness he had been keeping at bay to peek through, and he fixed the little girl with a solemn look. "I am sorry to hear that, Princess Lyarra. I'm sure he was a good and noble man." Had Sansa been forced to mourn and bury her husband too, after everything else she had lost? And so recently too, if Lyarra was to be believed about - about the babe. "What was his name?"

Lyarra only looked at him with confusion. "I do not have a father," she parroted, and Robb's eyes narrowed. "Mama says Theon and I were sired by wolves. Just like Lady Mormont's ancestors were sired by bears. She says that her daughter Lyanna was sired by a bear too!" 

For the second time in the span of this short conversation, Robb froze. 

_ No. _

"You do not have a father?" Robb questioned, his voice more of a croak, trembling with the effort of keeping the rage at bay. Lyarra shook her dark red curls again, and Robb watched as her hair flashed like molten copper in the light. "No man has ever claimed you as his daughter?"

Lyarra looked bored with the conversation, slowly beginning to inch away, as if adventure of a more appealing sort would be around the next corner, and far less disappointing than the Young Wolf, who could do nothing but stand at the threshold of his chambers, and fight the fury that threatened to overwhelm him. 

"I'm Mama's daughter." With her simple statement, she danced away, leaving Robb to stare after his bastard niece, and wonder what sort of craven had dared to lay his hands on his sister and put a babe in her belly, only to leave her shamed and dishonored. 

Fingers clenched into tight fists, Robb pulled the door shut behind him forcefully, and hurried off in search of the Lord and Lady Stark.

* * *

 

**SANSA:**

Sansa pressed the tips of her fingers to her forehead, as if the mere action could alleviate the growing ache. These headaches had become more and more frequent in the Years of Rebirth. They had been particularly terrible during her pregnancies, but usually they were brought on, only by stress. Since giving birth to Theon, this had been the first time the pounding had returned to her head. She knew Brienne worried, but Sansa refused to see the Maester. Wolkan would simply tell Sansa that she was working too much, and she ought to be resting. Sansa had rested for three moons after giving birth to her son, and it had driven her mad to slash her workload so drastically. It had been a difficult birth, but she ought to have returned sooner. The work for a queen never ended.

Besides, Sansa knew the exact source of her headache this time. She was...tentatively hopeful, over this return, but she was still terrified to allow herself to feel any happiness at the resurrection of the Starks. Sansa was paralyzed by the fear that she might wake and find that it had all been some cruel trick of the gods. She had told Jon the night before, she believed the gods apathetic, but everyone sought their fun in some fashion. Surely even the gods. And what  _ fun _ they had experienced, over the years, watching Sansa's misery as her home crumbled around her, and she had been forced to rebuild. 

She could not deny that - in spite of whatever happiness she allowed herself to experience - this presented Sansa with a myriad of problems. Not least among them, the fact that she would have to tell the Northern lords - and soon. She could not expect her family to creep around Winterfell like ghosts, and nor could she trust her household staff to keep quiet. There were certain truths she knew the serving girls and stable boys learned during their time at Winterfell. It was the nature of the highborn to be careless and loose-lipped around those of lower status. But this was far too big. It also threw into question, her own position as queen.

Sansa was loathe to think of it, but she had survived this long by thinking ten steps ahead of everyone else, by anticipating the very worst possible outcome. She couldn't know if Robb declaring himself would be such an outcome, but it certainly wouldn't be good. 

She knew what they said of her, particularly in the South. That she had been a power-mad wench, learning at the foot of Cersei Lannister and Petyr Baelish, draping herself in ambitions and dreams of a kingdom until she finally managed to trick a king out of the North. That she had dared to defy the Dragon Queen, all because she lusted after everything that was Daenerys Targaryen's by right of birth. Sansa had heard the whispers and the songs, and she did not care. Power mattered little to her, other than as a means to an end. Sansa only sought to do right by the North - to serve her people in whatever capacity she could.

There was a fear though, that the Northern lords who looked to her, who had fought for her, who had declared her their queen - that they would look at the Young Wolf risen again, or perhaps Lord Eddard Stark, and push her aside in favor of a male king. The thought left a bitter taste in Sansa's mouth, not least because it was their  _ right _ . If this magic was to be trusted - and she trusted so little now, that she doubted she would ever have true faith in this strange ritual - then Sansa was no longer the only Stark left in Winterfell. It was no longer her's, she was no longer the heir. The Lord of Winterfell had come again, and with him, the son who had declared independence for the North. Winterfell belonged to him.

The matter was not as simple as that though, and Sansa found herself almost wishing it was. Robb had been made king, of course, but he had ruled a North that no longer existed. The North at war, a North from before. Sansa was tasked with ruling the North as it was now, battle-worn and weary, and clinging to the hope of spring. Robb had been the one to declare independence for the North, but it had been Sansa who secured it. 

Sansa resolved to speak to her advisers as soon as possible. Something would have to be done and said about the Starks who had returned. Pushing the heavy oak chair back from her desk, Sansa began pacing the length of her solar, periodically reaching up to rub at her temples. It was all so complicated, impossibly so. She would tell her advisers the truth, as much of it as she could. She would quietly discuss the ramifications of succession with Meera; though Sansa had faith in her edict issued shortly before Lyarra's birth, she wanted to ascertain that the North would not be destabilized in a single, fell swoop disguised as the third happiest event of her life. And then she would speak to the lords, craft some sort of tale that could explain this impossibility, in a way that was grateful, and yet clearly regal. For she was their queen. Until the day they took her crown and placed it on the brow of another, Sansa Stark would be the queen of the North. All she could do was issue prayers she no longer believed in, that whoever followed loved the North with as much fervor as she did, and could be trusted to serve it, no matter the personal cost.

She did not know if her brother could be that man.

The news would have to be delivered soon. The Starks had never been idle, and they would not stand to be prisoners in their own homes. Arya could be trusted to slip about unseen, and perhaps even Bran, given that the people of Winterfell remembered him as a crippled king of one and twenty - certainly not a spritely boy of one and ten. But the others...no one would soon forget the long face of Ned Stark, the bright flash of Lady Catelyn's Tully hair, nor the impressive figure the Young Wolf cut. No one would soon forget the once king in the North, once king beyond the Wall. 

No one would forget how their queen wept when a white direwolf returned to Winterfell, and a raven brought tidings of their once-king's death. 

Before Sansa could call out for her steward, Wylla, the sound of knuckles rapping sharply against her door rang out. Just as she did yesterday, Brienne opened the door without waiting for permission, her face drawn tight, agitation clear in her eyes. Sansa frowned. "What is it Brienne?"

"My apologies, Your Grace. Lady Stark and - your brother. They have requested your presence in the sun solar. They say it is quite urgent."

Sansa felt a swooping sensation in the pit of her stomach.  _ Here it is _ , she thought grimly.  _ Here is what you have been waiting for. _

The many wars Sansa had lived in her life - so  _ short _ when she truly took stock of it; a woman of only four and twenty, and yet a woman who had lived and witnessed no less than three wars in the span of ten years - they had taught her much. Sansa, while uneasy to think herself  _ grateful _ toward her teachers, could acknowledge the many lessons she learned as useful. The game of  _ what-if _ still kept her awake at night. Sansa was ashamed to admit that if she were offered the opportunity to gain back her innocence, at the price of the harsh tutelage she had experienced with Baelish, with Cersei - she would not have an answer ready on her lips. The most important thing Sansa had learned had not been taught by any man or woman, but by the shape of life itself, the familiarity of her family's words on her tongue.  _ Winter is coming _ . Sansa had taken those words, and the many things she had been taught, and in the privacy of her mind, she had created her own words, words that would never be spoken aloud, but brought her strength all the same.

_ Do not hope for the best. Assume for the worst. Prepare for worse than that. _ Harsh, unforgiving words. Sansa loathed to imagine the pity she would see in her family's eyes, if she were ever to share with her mother and father what she had made of the Stark legacy. 

But their thoughts did not matter. They had not survived. She had. Sansa had prepared for worse.

Steeling herself,  _ porcelain, ivory, steel _ , Sansa nodded at the commander of her Queensguard. "Thank you Ser Brienne. I ask that you escort me to the sun solar."

Brienne nodded, appearing to steel herself alongside her lady, and pushed the door open wider, allowing Sansa passage. The two walked at a measured pace toward the royal apartments. If Brienne noticed how there was an unusual briskness in her steps, she said nothing. All of Sansa's fears were playing in front of her eyes, and she barely noticed the walls of Winterfell as she walked. Her mind was occupied with the many possible scenarios that could await her, the many preemptive solutions she was attempting to craft, before even being presented with the problem.

Finally the queen and her night arrived at the solar adjacent to Sansa's own chambers. She took a deep breath, and held her head high. Knocking softly, Sansa did not wait for a response, before pushing open the door. At once, several figures stood. Sansa kept the surprise off of her face as she glanced around, seeing the troubled look of her father, the distraught expression on her mother's face, and the twin glances of furious rage that Robb and Jon wore.

"Ser Brienne has informed me you wished to see me," Sansa said simply, doing away with formalities, and cutting straight to the heart of the matter. "Mother, please tell me, what has so disturbed you?" She wondered, for a moment, if it might be the truth of Jon's birth. Sansa glanced at him, pushing aside the memory of the previous night, deep in the crypts. 

"Oh Sansa," Catelyn looked heartbroken, and Sansa felt her alarm growing. "Who did this to you?"

Sansa's heart seized in her chest.  _ No _ . No, they couldn't have heard about Ramsay. They couldn't have - how - it wasn't possible. Sansa had wiped every trace of him from the North, with the meticulous, methodical energy she attacked each piece of embroidery, each new project. Had Arya...? Had  _ Bran _ ...?

"You must tell us sweetling. What man has dishonored you so?"

Her brow furrowed, and Sansa wrenched herself out of the nightmares of her past, blinking away her dazed expression, and staring at her mother in confusion. "W-what?"

"Give us the name of the man who has gotten not one, but  _ two _ bastards upon you, and we will have his head," Robb thundered, and Sansa closed her eyes as understanding finally sunk in.

Worse. This was much worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thoughts?


	4. i can see through you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa wondered if anyone ever forgot that the dead queens had been mothers too? She wondered if anyone was left to remember all that had been done in the name of their children. She wondered if anyone would remember what _she_ would do for her own children.
> 
>  _The North remembers_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am blown away by the response to this fic. thank you so much for reading and commenting, i appreciate every single one of you!
> 
> this chapter is a little shorter, and only has sansa + jon pov, but there's a lot that needs to be aired out before they can start moving forward.

**SANSA:**

Nestled in between the queen's chambers and the chambers that had once belonged to Sansa's lady mother, the sun solar had three points of entry that made it an absolute nightmare for Sansa's queensguard. Upon first taking her position as the ruler of the North, Sansa had elected to use that as her personal solar, often taking meetings with the lords and ladies of the North. It was one of her favorite rooms in Winterfell. The curved wall facing the walled courtyard below, had several large windows that allowed sunlight to stream in, bathing the room with warmth. Eventually Brienne's pleas had swayed Sansa's position, as had her desire for privacy, and she had converted a solar in the First Keep into her own private office. The sun solar was where Sansa would come to work in privacy, when she wished to have her children nearby. Sometimes, when Sansa was forced to play games of flattery and charm, she would invite whichever belligerent lord or lady to take midday meal with her in the sun solar, giving the illusion of opening up, when she was notoriously private and guarded. Such instances had become rarer in the five years since Sansa had been crowned. It had been well over a year since any meeting, formal or informal, had taken place in this solar.

And now Sansa stood opposite members of her fallen family, risen again, and she felt as if she were in the rarely used war room, rather than her private sanctuary. 

Sansa closed her eyes for a beat, and took a breath. As a child, she might have clenched her hands, or stamped her foot against the ground impatiently. Perfectly appropriate actions  _ for a child _ . Sansa was no longer a child, no longer an innocent. She had been taught - coached - out of such tells by Petyr Baelish. He had taught her how to be a statue, placid and immovable. Her stomach roiled the way it always did, whenever Sansa realized she felt a surge of something that might be akin to gratitude, though she knew it was never that. She had been a girl, and such lessons should have never been thrust upon her.

She had learned many lessons for one so young. Sansa often had to remind herself of her own age - she was a woman of four and twenty. She felt as though she had lived two lifetimes in that span of time. The lessons she had been taught, before she had even flowered, let alone stepped in to rule an independent kingdom, were those of a much older woman. Sansa had found accepting anything delivered by Cersei Lannister or Petyr Baelish to be bitter indeed, but she had swallowed her pride, and swallowed their counsel and she had survived. Mayhaps she would have survived without their assistance. She would never know. But she would not set aside all she had learned now, even with her family. They were strangers to her, and she to them. 

For all of the lessons she had learned at the feet of master manipulators of the realm, Sansa had learned a different lesson. first.  _ Family. Duty. Honor. _ She had loved her mother's Tully words, more than she ever embraced the Stark promise, as old as the Wall itself. Winter had come, but Sansa had held true to the oath every Tully uttered. Family before duty. Duty before honor. Staring at those assembled to  _ defend _ her from some monster they had created in their minds, Sansa realized with a sinking heart and indecipherable expression, that this was about  _ honor _ , not  _ family _ . 

_ Robb had never been good at remembering the correct order of the Tully words. _

Pushing the unkind, if not untrue thoughts from her head, Sansa moved to the arrangement of chairs in the corner of the room, next to one of the large windows. They were close to her desk, but closer to her family members who had clustered around the window, with Jon standing off to the side ever so slightly. Sansa moved toward them deliberately, shifting her position so that she was no longer opposite them. She took a seat, maintaining her straight posture, but forcing herself to look up at her brother who still stood taller, eyes flashing with anger and confusion. Every action was precisely calculated, even here, in Winterfell. Sansa had learned that no place was truly safe - not in peacetime, not in winter, and not even in her own home. As much as it pained her, Sansa knew she couldn't trust the figures who had emerged from the godswood. Not truly. Not yet. She needed to remain on her guard. Her children depended on her, her  _ kingdom _ depended on her. She saw the way Robb's shoulders slumped ever so slightly the moment Sansa sat down. She was a tall woman, having inherited the Stark height. Robb was taller than her, but only just. She cut an intimidating figure with her sharp features and cold eyes. Sansa knew what was said of the Northern Queen.  _ Cold, frigid, icy, _ were all adjectives used to describe her. She didn't particularly care, and it served her well, especially when dealing with the obstinate lords who still grumbled at the thought of a queen ruling over the North. Her brother, though not nearly as close-minded as some of the Northmen, was no exception. 

Even Ned and Cat had shifted ever so slightly. Though neither of her parents had appeared quite as angry as Robb, Catelyn's eyes had been full of tears. Though her eyes remained suspiciously shiny, Sansa could see her mother regaining her composure. Ned's face was as unreadable as it had always been. Sansa had always hated that face when she was a young girl. She could never quite manage to make her face as inscrutable as her father, and she had always suspected he was hiding disappointment whenever he wore such an expression around her. Now Sansa's own impenetrable mask could rival her father's.

_ Are you finally proud of me Father? _

Swallowing down the flash of anger that had flared in her belly - anger that Sansa had fought to overcome, with very little success in the years since her father's death. It was ill-fated to speak poorly of the dead, she knew. But so long as her thoughts remained only thoughts, she had allowed herself a certain amount of darkness and fury that crept up unbidden with certain memories. Ned Stark was no longer dead, and Sansa was no longer the little girl he had loved less. 

In the bright clarity of morning, following a fitful sleep, some of the shock and unadulterated joy had worn off, and her family's return - while still a cause for celebration - had lost some of its luster. What had been left in its place was the stress and fear of the ramifications. Sansa could not very well hide away her family in the Great Keep, and forbid them from seeing the outside world. But everyone else, save for her loyal knights, believed Sansa to be the very last of the Starks. How was she to explain this to her people?

How was she to reconcile the elation she felt at her family's return, with the painful memories she was still only just realizing, as she reflected upon the many days that had brought her here?

"Am I to assume that you have met your niece then?" Sansa asked, her tone wry, a small smile playing at the corner of her lips. She wished she had been there to witness it. She certainly would have liked to prepare her daughter a little more, before meeting the men and women of her mother's stories, but Lyarra rose with the sun, and Sansa had risen even earlier, to begin working on the many tasks she needed to accomplish. It was unsurprising that Lyarra had detected unusual activity in the castle, and immediately sought answers. 

At the mention of her daughter, Robb's gaze softened an infinitesimal amount, and Sansa could have sworn she loved him more for it. But his eyes hardened once again, and his fist clenched tightly at his side. 

"Sansa, you must give us a name. We cannot allow this to go unpunished." His voice was softer, pleading, but Sansa simply rose an eyebrow, unmoved by the clear emotion in his voice.

"I have no name to give you. And you are not in a position to punish anyone." Robb moved back, as if struck, but as he did so, Sansa's mother moved forward, surging to take the chair next to her daughter. Catelyn's hand reached out for Sansa's, folded delicately at her knee, and her mother squeezed her fingers, ever so slightly.

"Sweetling, this man does not deserve your loyalty. If he cannot be trusted to do his duty and wed you, he must suffer the consequences. What sort of craven can be allowed to leave the woman he has gotten with child, let alone a queen?" Catelyn's voice was fierce, and for a moment, Sansa could pretend her mother's words were over a different matter entirely, and she could take comfort in the familiar passion. Catelyn Stark had been a protective mother, to say the least. Cersei Lannister had fashioned herself a lion, but Sansa had never seen a mother defend her cubs the way the Southron wolf of Winterfell had. But Sansa was a mother now too, a mother and a queen. She was not simply called the Red Wolf for her hair.

"Mother, Father, Robb, Jon, I thank you for your concern," Sansa said softly, glancing at each one in turn. "However, it is misplaced."

Robb regained the use of his voice, and he started forward, angrily. "You have two children, and you are unmarried!" He hissed angrily. "It was your daughter who told me, but your lady knight confirmed as much!" Sansa's face remained blank and unimpressed. She very much doubted Brienne had done any such thing. She took her duties to Sansa and her children very seriously. She would never betray her queen's trust in such a fashion. But Robb had always seen what he wanted to see.

"And?" Sansa demanded imperiously, shedding the demure countenance she had adopted. She should have known that she would never placate her brother when he was so incensed. He had always felt entitled to know everything, but he was no longer a king. He had not held the rights to Sansa's secrets in many years. "Many kings have fathered bastards. Robert Baratheon had dozens."

The vulgarity of Sansa's implication, if not her words, shocked her family into silence. Robb looked near apoplectic, while Jon clenched his jaw, and turned to stare out the window. Sansa felt a pang of sympathy. Though the truth felt like an ancient stone in the recesses of Sansa's mind, Jon had only learned of his parentage the night before. He had not had any time to adjust. Speaking of bastards so flippantly, when he had suffered for his status, was unkind. Sansa had not intended that. She had not wanted to hurt Jon.

Sighing, Sansa pulled her hand from her mother's grasp, and stood to stand behind her desk. Tears were falling down Catelyn's cheeks now, but Sansa could not bring herself to comfort her mother. She would not apologize for her children, nor could she bring herself to regret the circumstances of their births. Had things been different, had she been allowed to change certain matters, she would have. But that sort of magic seemed reserved for the gods themselves, as evidenced by the faces in front of her. 

"A bastard is a great dishonor, even for a king or queen." It was Ned who spoke, and Sansa flexed her fingers outward at her sides, to keep herself from clenching them into a fist. He had not looked at Jon when he spoke, but the once king flinched all the same. Sansa's anger rose again, trembling in her throat. _Enough_.

"My children are not bastards," Sansa said simply, her chin raised, cool eyes meeting the careful gaze of her father. "They are Starks."

"Yes, your daughter told me she was _sired by wolves_ ," Robb said through clenched teeth.

"It is true."

Robb scoffed loudly, and Jon stared at her as if she was unrecognizable. Sansa supposed that to him, she was. Sansa had expected this, she had been preparing for this from the moment Brienne ushered in the family of dead Starks. Life had moved on, past their deaths, and Sansa refused to apologize for allowing herself the unending joy her children brought her. But she had known, the moment she saw her older brother, with all of his misplaced ideas of honor - as if he had been some paragon of virtue - Sansa had known that he would demand exactly what she could not give - her remorse.

She had known what to expect from this conversation, and yet it was the too-gentle tone of her father’s voice that cut her. 

“Sansa, help us to understand. We just cannot see how you could…” Lord Eddard Stark appeared at a loss for words, but the ones he had uttered were damning enough. Her hands and teeth were clenched together, and she fixed her father with a withering gaze, taking pleasure in the way he recoiled at the sight of it.

“There is plenty you do not understand, Father.” Sansa’s voice was as cold as her eyes, flashing with the anger she only just managed to contain. “The world _ended_. An army of the dead marched upon Winterfell from the North, Daenerys Targaryen brought dragons with her from the East, and Cersei Lannister loomed in the South. Hundreds of _thousands_  died when the Mother of Dragons insisted upon taking King’s Landing with her family’s words. Dozens of Houses went extinct in a manner of years, with even more on the brink of disappearing forever. The number of children who are the Lords and Ladies of their Houses outnumber the men and women fully grown. Bastards have been raised in every kingdom to save the future of their Houses. The matter of bastards is of little consequence, and even less when it comes to my children.”

The room was frozen, save for the harsh rise and fall of Sansa’s chest as she breathed in deeply. If she had a mirror in front of her, she would see two, ugly splotches of red, high on her cheekbones. Sansa could not bring herself to feel embarrassed at the slip in her normally unbreakable self-possession. She was no Targaryen, but it was a wolf curled, deep in her chest. It did not slumber, it stalked and it snarled, ready to tear teeth into flesh to defend her children. 

Ned Stark's face was, as always, long and somber. It was the face Sansa remembered the clearest, whenever she dared to cast her mind back to her childhood, to indulge in the happier memories before she ever left Winterfell. She had spent many of her days trying to coax a smile onto her lord father's lips. She remembered thinking he was quite handsome when he smiled. His eyes seemed to crinkle the most often at Arya, however, no matter how dutiful Sansa proved to be. But sometimes his eyes would soften ever so slightly when he turned his gaze to Sansa. It had been enough for her as a girl. Her father's eyes were soft now, and full of sorrow. It had been years since Sansa had looked into her father's eyes and tried to discern what emotion he felt, and she could not identify all that was hidden behind the grey storm clouds. Sansa wondered if it was the world he mourned, or something else.

Robb and Catelyn were far more expressive than Ned. The abject horror was worn plainly on Catelyn's face, and Sansa felt a pang of regret in her heart for her harsh words. Catelyn, she believed, _had_  been truly worried about Sansa, and not simply her honor, whatever was left of that. Sansa's mother understood, more than anyone else in the room save for Sansa herself, the lot that was given to women in life. The roles that _had_  been ironclad and nearly inescapable, at the time of Catelyn's death. Sansa's own mother had defied such positions and expectations, but under extraordinary circumstances. She had no reason to believe that Sansa - the perfect lady at the age of three - would have sought to upend the status quo she had known her entire life. 

Sansa could not blame her mother for her surprise. She had often spoken of being a queen as a girl, it was true. But with the exception of Catelyn, no one had ever seemed to truly _listen_  to her dreams. Sansa had not wanted power and grandeur. She had not been without ambition as a young child, but she had wanted a handsome man from a song. She had wanted to wear pretty dresses, and be a proper Southron lady, since the North had seemed unkind in her loneliness. The idea of being a _queen_  appealed to Sansa only insofar as marrying a prince or handsome knight. 

She had been an excellent scholar, and a quick study, according to Maester Luwin at the time. Notwithstanding her struggles with figures, Sansa had done well in her lessons. She had paid more attention to the history of Westeros and its families far more than Robb, Jon, or Theon had. Sansa had known, even at three and ten, that she would make one of the highest matches in the Seven Kingdoms. As the daughter of a Great House, the Warden of the North, and the granddaughter of another Great House and Lord Paramount, with connections to the Vale through her father's fostering and her aunt's marriage, it had been expected. The prospects of her younger siblings had depended entirely on the matches made for Robb and Sansa. A woman from a lesser, yet richer House could have been selected for Robb, as the heir to Winterfell, but as a daughter, Sansa would have been expected to move to her husband's keep, and take over his household there - in the long summer of peace and prosperity, wealth and alliances would not have been enough to justify a match made to a man of a significantly lower station. Outside of the Stark family, there were few eligible suitors befitting to the eldest daughter of Winterfell, and the Crown Prince had been one of the handful. To the girl of three and ten who loved romantic songs of princesses and their beloveds, the idea of marrying a golden prince, and following in the footsteps of the then most beautiful woman in the world, had been an appealing one. Only Sansa's mother seemed to have understood, even just a little. 

Robb though...Robb's expression of horror and revulsion was different than Catelyn's. Sansa could almost see his mind trying to wrap itself around her words, around the nightmares of Others and dragons and Lannisters. The world, when he left it, had been a terrible place. But it had been a world in which Sansa's nightmares consisted of Grey Wind's head being sown to her brother's body, of marrying the Imp when she was a girl of but three and ten. Now her nightmares were full of unnatural blue eyes, and the screams of thousands rising above the repugnant scent of burning flesh. Robb could not understand the world they lived in now, for he had been slain before witnessing the way the old had shaped this new, fledgling thing.

Sansa only let her eyes skitter across Jon's face, barely resting on his long expression that matched her father's, before she tore her eyes away. Jon had lived in her world too. He had fought in it, he had _died_  in it. But he did not remember. She felt his gaze on her, a heavy, burning thing, but Sansa did not dare meet his eyes. It felt too much like their first meeting at Castle Black, after the pretenses of their childhood had fallen away, after the only two Starks left in the world - a thought they had assumed to be true - had joined together again. Did he remember? Did Jon remember the way he had pulled her body against his? The way he had lead her quietly to his chambers? The many nights the two of them would sit around a fire, quietly discussing - arguing - their plans of action, and reminiscing on the brighter days of Winterfell? Did he remember any of it? Would he ever?

She didn't know which answer would be worse.

Taking another deep breath to calm herself, Sansa pressed her hand against the back of the delicately carved chair at her desk. _I am Sansa Stark of Winterfell,_  she reminded herself sternly. _This is my home._  She was not frightened of her family, not even though they ought to be dead, buried well beneath the earth in the Winterfell crypts. But the possibilities, the uncertainty of the future...it was frightening to her. The anger and disappointment they seemed to hold towards her _children_ , it incensed her. She simply could not afford to let her emotions dictate her tone.

"I understand that you wanted something different from me. I understand that you may be disappointed. But know this. I love my children more than anything in this world. The people of Winterfell know them. They are loved. As far as anyone is concerned, they were fathered by wolves. I have not been dishonored. Lyarra and Theon are both _Starks_ , and they shall remain so until their dying day."

For a moment, no one spoke. Sansa wondered if her family remembered her ever speaking this much, about something that had nothing to do with a song or romantic tale of ages past. Though her children _were_  featured in at least one song, Sansa remembered with a wry twist of her lips. Northern bards had become quite popular in recent years, and as the first Northern Queen since King Torrhen had knelt, Sansa was often a powerful subject of such balladry. 

Robb’s jaw worked frantically, and Sansa steeled herself for whatever words he was preparing to lobby across the chasm that had suddenly appeared between the siblings that had once shared a special closeness. 

“You would have a _Theon_  sit upon your throne, and inherit Winterfell, and all of the North?” Robb bit out the words as if they pained him, and Catelyn stiffened in her chair.

Sansa frowned harshly at her brother. 

“Theon will only take the throne if Lyarra chooses to abdicate, or if she dies before naming her own heirs.” Sansa’s voice was firm and unyielding.

Robb stared in confusion, ignorant to Sansa’s mounting frustration.

“You would place your daughter over your son in the line of succession?”

“Lyarra is my firstborn,” Sansa replied coolly. “The North is her birthright. As I have already told you, Robb, much has changed. The majority of Northern Houses are lead by women. This is true for much of the Six Kingdoms as well. If Lyarra is not suited to rule, or if she does not want the burden of queenship upon her shoulders, it may pass to Theon, however, I will not rob my daughter of her inheritance.”

Sansa’s words, though not intended as a slight against Robb, caused him to inhale sharply, and draw back.

“You stand there and you speak of the inheritance you will leave your daughter, as if you do not dishonor the entirety of the North with your son’s very name!”

For a moment Sansa stood, her body a statue of ice, unmoving. She had to force down the rage that swelled within, reminding herself that she had already reacted out of anger once, and she could not afford another slip of composure. Robb still felt the keen sting of Theon’s betrayal. She could forgive him his angry words, but only those.

“My son bears the name of a Northern King of old,” Sansa spoke with composure she did not feel. “He is named after the Hero of the Godswood, who fought during the War of Dawn. Both men lived in times of war. I named my son, so that a Theon Stark might see peace.”

“Theon Greyjoy betrayed us! He murdered our brothers and took Winterfell for himself!” Robb finally exploded, and Sansa drew herself up to her full height, eyes flashing dangerously.

“It was a lie. Rickon and Bran survived. Theon died defending Bran, defending  _ our home _ .” Robb scoffed, and Sansa clenched her teeth, her own expression becoming cold and unforgiving. “Theon risked  _ everything _ to rescue me from the Bolton bastard.” Sansa’s voice was harsh and monotone, and she ignored the way her family seemed to flinch and widen their eyes at the allusion to her second husband. “He would have died to ensure my freedom.” Sansa’s eyes were chips of Northern ice as they bore into Robb, so cold her gaze was  _ burning _ . 

“Theon Greyjoy did more to save me than my trueborn Stark brother.”

All the air seemed to vanish from the room, and Sansa kept her head high, refusing to lower her gaze. “I have duties to attend to. Until I figure out how to explain your presence to the Northern lords and ladies, I insist that you stay in the royal quarters. I’m sure Arya and Bran will bring Rickon along shortly.” Without sparing the gathered Starks a backwards glance, Sansa turned on her heel and swept out of the solar gracefully, praying to the Old gods and New that none of them noticed the way her body trembled.

* * *

 

**JON:**

Jon was struggling to remain in the present. His vision seemed to flicker between the queen who stood in front of him, and images of the same woman wearing a softer expression, a gaze that looked something near to what he would not dare to call _delicate_. Ever since he had been pulled into an uneasy sleep, Jon's mind seemed to have traversed between spaces he had never known were there. He wondered if Bran had been incorrect in his assumption that he would likely never regain what he had lost of the life Jon did not feel he had lived. There were simply too many nights that seemed to linger on the edge of his mind, bathed in the warm glow of a fire, the surprising laugh of a woman who had rarely even bestowed a smile upon him. Jon wondered if they were not dreams, but _memories_. He had chambers here in Winterfell. Had he grown close with his sister - cousin? 

Whatever closeness the previous version of himself had maintained with the queen, it seemed to have dissipated now. Jon blinked, and realized that Sansa was no longer in the solar. Robb was standing stock still, his hands forming fists at his side, while his lady mother wept in her chair. His father - his _uncle_  - stood to the side, his hands clasped in front of him, his head bowed ever so slightly, as if he were asking some unseen god for forgiveness.

_There would be much to forgive_ , Jon thought harshly, and immediately regretted the cruel reflection. 

"She -" Robb seemed incapable of even finishing his sentence, so consumed with anger, and Jon turned his eyes to his brother-cousin, his eyebrows furrowed with confusion. It suddenly dawned on Jon that in this life, in this second chance granted by Bran, or magic, or gods, or _something_  that he could not name, Jon was older than Robb. Robb had died at the Twins, a king, a husband, a father. He had died as a young man of nine and ten. At one point in Jon's life, such an age had seemed fully grown. He himself had been younger when he took the black and took up his position at the Wall. But he was two and twenty now - assuming. He was older than Robb, and in this moment, Jon felt those years. 

"You heard Sansa, Robb." Jon's words were firm, yet not unkind. "She is the queen. She is a _mother_." His stomach clenched, and his heart twisted uncomfortably at the word. "Do not seek to challenge her. Certainly not in her own home."

Robb shot him a look of pure betrayal. " _You_  of all people support her in this? She has _bastards_  Jon, two of them! You know what it is like to grow up as such." There once might have been a time in which Jon tossed his glove at Robb for such a slight, challenging him in the training yards. Now he simply sighed, and shook his head. 

"I'm not a bastard, Robb. And even if I was, I listened when Sansa spoke. She said her children are not bastards. She said her children were sired by wolves. She said her son is named Theon Stark. She is your _queen_ , Robb. Her word is law." Without waiting for dismissal, without pausing to see the confusion settle onto the former king's face, without bothering to glance back at his uncle, Jon strode toward the door and wrenched it open, shutting it just as quickly behind him.

For a moment, Jon leaned against the door he had yanked shut, closing his eyes and drawing in a harsh breath. A heartbeat passed, and Jon glanced around, realizing he did not know where to go. Sansa had ordered them to remain in the royal apartments, but he did not dare enter her chambers. Lord Eddard’s and Lady Catelyn’s chambers certainly wasn’t a viable option, but Jon knew he could not simply linger in the corridor. 

A giggle broke the steady stream of Jon’s thoughts, and his head lifted. There was another door a short distance from the solar behind Jon. It was slightly ajar, with a slant of sunlight cast onto the dark floor of the corridor. Curious, Jon drew closer, listening carefully as the shrieks of delight grew in volume. He paused before the door for a moment, before pushing it open gently, and stepping into the room. 

It was a nursery. Jon had no memories of the nursery at Winterfell. He knew from the servants, that at one time, he had resided there with Robb. Jon had been moved out first, however, upon the arrival of Sansa. He had been given his own quarters, which Robb eventually joined, however, Lady Stark had wanted her children in one place. She hadn't wanted Jon there as well. Jon had never been allowed in the nursery, once he was given his own quarters, not even when the remaining Starks were born. Jon had never been allowed to bond with them the way Robb had been expected to. Jon remembered his cousin's fascination when Sansa, and later Arya had arrived. Jon had eventually come to deeply care for the children raised as his half-siblings, but Jon himself had never spent time playing with them in their childhood nursery. He imagined though, that the nursery had looked something quite like this.

The room was warm, warmer than anywhere else in the castle, though Jon was not uncomfortably hot. It was also bright. There were large windows, similar to the nearby solar, and the curtains were drawn back, allowing long slants of light to be cast against the stone floor. The Stark direwolf motif was highly present, though it was not so tacky as to be overpowering. The colors were fairly neutral, with the occasional splash of blue Jon had always associated with Lord Stark's Tully wife. A crib was tucked into a corner of the room, far from any windows, and a small bed was nearby. Jon would not have immediately known the room was a nursery, if it were not for the two children on the floor, absorbed by Jon's cousins and direwolf.

In the few moments it had taken Jon to observe the room and notice the children, Ghost had risen from his station on the floor beside Arya, and loped to Jon. His breath hitched in his throat. "Ghost," he breathed out, reaching a trembling hand to scratch at the fur behind the direwolf's ears. His companion's red eyes seemed to bore into Jon's, and something loosened in his chest. Jon had not allowed himself to think on his direwolf after waking in the godswood. There had been plenty to keep his mind occupied, what with an unexpected resurrection, seeing his family alive, and wrapping his head around the truth of his existence. It had been easy not to think about the gaping hole he had felt, as though a part of his very soul had been missing.

"I should have known you'd find your way back to Winterfell," Jon said softly, continuing to rub eagerly at the wolf. "I'm here. I'm alive." He wondered if that was as surprising to Ghost as it was to Jon himself.

"Uncle Jon!" Jon startled violently, caught aback by the words more than the volume. _Uncle Jon_. His eyes quickly identified the speaker, and his chest suddenly felt sore and tight, as if his lungs had too much air, and were now pressing painfully against his ribcage. "Uncle Jon, look! It's Aunt Arya and Uncle Bran and Uncle Rickon! They're all here! Mama told Septa Chambers and Lady Meera that I don't have to have any lessons today! Look, come say hello!"

The little girl - Lyarra, Sansa had called her daughter Lyarra - was quite clearly the princess of Winterfell. There wasn't a doubt in Jon's mind, not with her Tully hair and grace, even as she scrambled to her feet, only to launch herself at Jon a moment later. Her hair was curlier than Sansa's, and a few shades darker as well, but she looked much like her mother had at that age. Jon had to swallow several times, before he finally managed to make his voice work.

"Princess Lyarra," he greeted softly, his hands hovering awkwardly at his sides. He was terrified by her presence. This was Sansa's daughter, the heir to the North, and he was just a bastard. If Catelyn Stark could see this now, she would likely be calling for Jon's head within the moment.

_But she's a bastard too, isn't she?_ Jon thought to himself, and he swallowed again.

Lyarra frowned up at him, her brows knitted together in confusion and displeasure. "You're here! Mama told me you would never come back! Why did she lie?"

Unused to the bluntness of the child's words, Jon shot Arya a glare when she snorted loudly from her place on the floor, oddly tender as she ran her hand through the soft, downy hair of the babe laid out on the floor. _Theon_. Blinking, Jon turned his attention back to Lyarra, who's wide eyes - Stark grey rather than Tully blue - were staring up at him, a plea for answers evident in their depths.

"Your mother didn't lie, Princess," Jon said softly, settling on a vague enough answer he hoped would explain his unexpected presence. "Neither of us expected me to return. But I did."

The little girl's gaze remained on him for a long minute, leaving Jon feeling unsettled. It was akin to the gazes he sometimes felt coming from Sansa, as if a single pair of eyes could dissect him and uncover all the secrets and hidden desires of his heart. Jon could only pray that wasn't the case. 

"That's silly," Lyarra finally declared, impatience showing on her face. "Why wouldn't you come back? You haven't even met Theon yet!" Jon swallowed again. He had defended the babe's name to Robb out of respect for Sansa but...he could not understand. Sansa said Theon had saved her, but was that truly enough to atone for all the evil he had done? She claimed that Theon had not been responsible for the death of Bran and Rickon, and a simple glance at the latter, curled on the floor with a kitten he had found, seemed to be proof of that. But to name her child, her first son _Theon_? 

It seemed that he had little choice in the matter of meeting the prince of Winterfell, for Lyarra had grabbed his hand, suddenly and insistently, and began pulling him over to where his cousins were gathered in a small circle. Jon allowed his cousin's daughter to lead him, taken aback by the familiarity she exhibited. Were they close? She called him _uncle_. Had Sansa truly allowed him to be a part of her daughter's life? 

The youngest Starks had gathered around the floor of the nursery. Jon was surprised by the open gentleness Arya wore as she glanced between the little girl pulling Lyarra forward, and the babe laid out on the soft furs. Rickon was alternating his glance between the kitten and the babe, clearly giving his attention to whichever seemed to entertain him more. Bran was sitting still, wearing a tranquil expression with the tiniest smile pulling at the corners of his lips. Jon took a deep breath and looked down at the babe, looking away from Lyarra's expectant gaze.

He needn't have worried, Jon realized, as he crouched down beside Sansa's son. There was nothing resembling Theon Greyjoy in the babe's features, from what Jon could tell. In fact, he didn't look much like _anyone_. He had a smattering of dark hair on the crown of his head. It looked so soft that Jon had to resist the urge to reach out and stroke the babe's head. But there was nothing truly remarkable or distinctive; he looked like any other babe, impossibly small, squirming restlessly on the furs.

"This is Theon!" Lyarra announced proudly, sounding for all the world like she had brought him into the world herself. Jon's gaze drifted between the two children, and a smile began spreading across his lips. "He's my brother. He doesn't do much now, but Mama says someday he'll grow to be big and strong and he'll go riding with me!" If Lyarra had reached in between his ribs and squeezed his heart with her little hands, Jon thought it might have hurt less. How long had it been since anyone had voiced such an innocent wish, such pure thoughts on the future?

Jon was reminded suddenly, of Sansa, and her dreams of songs and princes and knights. He felt a deep shame welling in the pool of his stomach. He had often rolled his eyes with Arya over such moments. They had written Sansa off as silly and foolish, as if Jon himself hadn't dreamed of Aemon the Dragonknight or Ser Ryam Redwyne. There had been innocence in such dreams. Jon was pleased to see that innocence in Sansa's daughter. He had seen the fierceness in her eyes as she stood in front of her parents and in front of Robb and even Jon, and defended her children. _They will have what we did not,_  her flashing eyes seemed to have shouted. _They will not face the same horrors we did._

His gaze met Arya's. There seemed to be a deep sadness hidden in her eyes, and Jon felt his throat clench. They had _died_. It hadn't felt real, not truly. There had hardly been a moment to think on it. One moment Jon had felt the agonizing bite of steel slicing his flesh, sliding into his body as if it were nothing, the next he had awoken in the godswood. He had been betrayed by his men, and missed an entire _lifetime_  as a result. His throat bobbed with the pain of it, and he knew Arya understood his troubled gaze.

_ We have missed too much. _

"Tell me about Theon, sweetling," Jon instructed quietly, the endearment slipping out of his lips before he could stop himself. A foggy image of him pressing a soft kiss to a crown of dark red curls lingered at the edge of his mind, but Jon pushed the false vision of an unkiss away. "Tell me what you have been doing."

Lyarra launched into a detailed explanation of her daily activities, punctuated with hands that gesticulated wildly, an odd habit that her mother did not possess, and Jon listened attentively, before his eyes drifted back to Arya's. There was determination there now, he observed, watching her glance between niece and nephew. Determination that Jon himself felt. They had missed too much, but not any more. They were here.

For now, they were here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thoughts? next chapter will see a lot more individual interactions and povs + the starks getting to see sansa in action as queen in the north. 
> 
> i'm currently accepting jonsa and theonsa prompts for my [birthday giveaway](https://joygreys.tumblr.com/post/185671888779/let-me-begin-by-saying-wow-i-am-honestly-floored), so if you have a prompt, go ahead and submit it [here!](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScNKT7AC9F9BM9emmZHriGIBqdyAQKqSyVohEwhztYINwcxIg/viewform?usp=sf_link)


	5. you're feeding on my energy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _But where_ , Robb wonders desperately, scrabbling for purchase in this world of shadows and myths, _is there place for a once dead king?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wound up having to move some scenes to the next chapter, because this one was becoming too unwieldy, but a return to robb's pov, and our first look at arya's headspace!

**ARYA**

Arya didn't remember things.

Bran had said there was a good chance that Jon wouldn't recall anything from the life he had lived after his first death - and Arya had enough practice pushing aside her emotions to dwell on the special kind of pain _that_  brought her - but there were things Arya didn't remember either. Part of it was the life she had lived with the Faceless Men. Arya had learned how to forget. It had been necessary. She couldn't remember moments of her life, days, weeks, even entire months. There were gaps.

Arya couldn't remember dying.

She remembered the storm. She remembered the waves crashing furiously, beating her ship this way and that. She remembered how her ship - which had seemed so magnificent when she first stepped on board - had felt impossibly small, about to be swallowed up by the largess of the unforgiving ocean. She remembered thinking of everything - every _one_  - she had left behind. Those she would leave alone. She had felt fear, Arya remembered that. Only a year prior, she had stood in the midst of a burning city, only to feel that same fear she had felt then, surge up within her at the prospect of meeting her end underneath the waves.

Inexplicably, Arya remembered her last thoughts had been of Theon Greyjoy.

She remembered thinking of the boy she had grown up _loathing_. The one who had been so close with Robb, yet stared at the rest of them with angry, envious eyes. The one who had not killed her brothers, but still betrayed them, murdered innocent children, lead Robb to his death. She had remembered the man who returned to Winterfell, broken and determined, clinging to Sansa - who clung back with an intensity Arya would never understand. Her sister had always had a greater capability for kindness. Arya had never forgiven the man.

But in that moment, facing the furious crashes of the waves, swallowing the salty sea with every desperate gasp of breath, Arya had thought on Theon Greyjoy, a wild notion that drew a hysterical laugh from her lips. The Greyjoy kraken had died in Winterfell, far away from the salt and sea that ran through his veins, while a girl - _a girl is Arya Stark of Winterfell and I'm going home_  - was to be swallowed by the sea, far from the icy plains of the North she had once fought for.

In that moment, all Arya wanted was to return _home_.

She hadn't expected her wish to be granted. Arya had been quiet since her return. Every part of her had longed to reach trembling hands out to clutch at her parents, her brothers, _Sansa_. She had only embraced one of them, though she had allowed others to embrace her. Arya had only moved forward to clutch at Sansa, pretending she did not recognize the hurt that flashed across her mother's gaze. 

How could she explain it to them? How could she take a knife to her flesh, and dig out the darkness to present to her family, and expect them to accept her? Arya could allow herself the comfort of Sansa's arms because she _knew_. Arya could bury her hands in the comforting familiarity of Sansa's hair. It was already red. The blood of her palms would not stand out there. 

Aside from the moment in Sansa's solar, Arya had not been able to speak to her sister privately. She wasn't surprised - Sansa was queen now, and certainly dealing with the same shock that her family was experiencing. Arya did not envy her position. The political realm had always been Sansa's, but Arya was certainly familiar enough with Westerosi legalese to understand that the resurrection of the Starks - as welcome as it certainly was - would certainly complicate matters. Two Northern kings - one of them exiled - and the lord of Winterfell were now alive once again. Only Bran knew what the future might bring - though now that he was no longer the Three-Eyed Raven, Arya wondered at that. 

Such thoughts had driven Arya from her bed, well before the sun rose. Though Sansa had intended for her family to keep a low profile until she managed to explain their presence in Winterfell, Arya knew how to make herself invisible. She had wandered through Winterfell, watching as the castle rose for the day. She had noted with pleasure, that Dacey Mormont appeared to be alive and well. There had been rumors that the woman had been taken hostage by the Lannisters at the Red Wedding. However, words were wind, and mounting a rescue mission for a hostage who might not have even been alive was the height of foolishness. Arya was glad the rumor had been true. The woman - the last of Bear Island - seemed just as fierce as Lyanna had been, beginning her day early in the training yards with a strength and ferocity that Arya had become used to seeing in Brienne.

She had meant to speak with Sansa before the queen began her day. Arya had crept toward the royal quarters with that express intention, before the sight of her niece had all but bowled her over.

Arya knew of Lyarra's existence. Sansa had written to her several times, during Arya's travels on the high seas. Arya had never responded, but her fingers had traced the loops and curves of each letter so often that she knew she could recite Sansa's words as well as her sister could sing any of her beloved songs. Sansa had written to inform Arya that she was with child, and then again that she had given birth to a daughter and named her Lyarra. Officially, Sansa had written, she was named after their grandmother, the mother of Ned Stark, who had been forced to endure her daughter's disappearance, followed swiftly by the murder of her husband and eldest son. A strong, sad woman, Arya had remembered from her father's accounts. But Sansa had also written that she chose the name for _her_. It reminded Sansa of her lost aunt and her wandering sister. Two women whom Sansa loved dearly, missed fiercely, and wished she could know better. The words, put to the parchment scroll, had driven the air straight out of Arya's lungs.

She had never met little Lyarra, though from the moment she received the raven from Winterfell, a part of her heart had been devoted only to her niece. Sansa had not closed a portrait, and Arya had perished at sea not long after receiving the news. But she had needed no recognition from a previous life to realize who Lyarra was, the moment she had laid eyes on her. 

The girl had red hair, like Sansa, though several shades darker. It was curly, and rather unruly - a fact which had made Arya's lips twitch into a faint smirk, wondering how her sister felt about _that_. Arya had been trained to pick apart a person's face, to identify every freckle, and notice every curve. Arya could list the dozens of resemblances she saw, but none of that seemed to matter. She was not a miniature of her mother, nor an even split between Sansa and the father Arya knew her sister would not speak of. She was her own, _Lyarra_.

Lyarra was a girl worth knowing, Arya decided. Not simply because she was the daughter of Arya's sister, though she would have adored the girl simply by virtue of Lyarra being her niece. But because she was wholly unlike anyone Arya could remember in her gap-riddled memory. There were glimmers of Sansa, of course, and all of the Starks. But, as Lyarra bounced around, acting out various sections of different songs for the amusement of her aunt and uncles, Arya knew she was _different_. She was _happy_ , an innocent. She had not been touched by the wars and tragedies that had turned her ancestors into dust, into ghosts, into battlefields. She did not carry the scars on her heart or skin that the rest of the Starks always would. 

The thought was jarring, and Arya found herself seeking out Jon's gaze. It was soft, as he watched Lyarra dance about the room, his hand occasionally drifting over to gently stroke young Theon's cheek, before stopping himself, as if he wasn't allowed. Arya watched him, her own gaze impassive, until his eyes found hers. There was a strange look in his eyes, as if hope had married despair within his heart. Arya felt her own clench painfully in her chest. It was a feeling she could identify with, staring at her young niece and nephew. Children of spring, even if Lyarra had been born in the depths of winter, Theon in what would have surely been the sort of grief that could have shattered Sansa, if Arya's sister had been made of anything less than steel. There was so much _hope_  in them, yet Arya found herself mourning that she no longer carried that same hope within her own soul.

Without tearing his gaze away from Lyarra - currently in the throes of Jonquil and Florian - Jon shifted closer to Arya. She stiffened slightly, feeling regret as soon as she saw the hurt that flashed across Jon's face. She reached out a hand and placed it on his shoulder gently, pretending she did not see the blood that still coated it. None of it seemed to touch Jon's cloak, and he was polite enough to ignore the coppery stench, the dripping red. 

"I have missed you little sister," he said quietly, his gaze holding a softness that had never been present, not even in their youth, when Arya had felt closer to her Snow brother than any of her Stark siblings. But the softness immediately gave way to a sharp grief that left Arya with the taste of iron in her mouth. "There is something I need -"

"You will always be my brother," Arya said firmly, ignoring the way his eyes widened. "It doesn't matter who sired you. You are my brother. You'll always be a Stark. _We_  have always been brother and sister, and we always shall be." 

Jon swallowed, before nodding sharply. "You know then? Or....knew?"

Arya paused, debating on how much to tell him. She doubted Sansa had spoken to him yet, and Bran had never been terribly forthcoming with all that he knew. Not wanting to risk any dangerous truths, Arya chose her words with care.

"Yes. Your friend Samwell Tarly found proof in the citadel. He told you, and you told us." She could feel Jon's heavy gaze boring holes into her skin, but she had turned, letting her eyes drift to Bran and Rickon. Her lips turned upward in an amused smirk, watching Bran. For once he appeared completely out of his element, no longer the emotionless creature that had returned from Beyond the Wall. He was the same age as Rickon now, and clearly trying to engage his younger brother. However, Rickon was not the same wild boy that Arya remembered, and seemed more interested in quietly playing with the kitten, his eyes drifting up ever so often to look at Jon, before quickly glancing away. 

She frowned, but her own thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the door opening, revealing her older brother. Oddly enough, it was _his_  expression that Arya struggled to decipher, rather than the solemn, inscrutable faces her father and Jon often wore, or the hardened mask Sansa had eventually fashioned for herself, that could never fully hide the brightness of her eyes and gentleness of her heart, even when calling for the head of a traitor.

Arya supposed it was because Robb himself did not know how he felt. She could detect a certain amount of remorse in his eyes, but frustration was present too. His expression softened the slightest bit, seeing Lyarra, but something dark and complex flashed in his eyes when he caught sight of the babe. Arya shifted, clearing her throat, and forcing his attention to fly back to her.

She would never pretend to accept Theon Greyjoy. He might have even been on her list once, and Arya was not pleased her nephew would share his name. 

And yet...he had saved Sansa. Arya could no more pretend that she would not sink to her knees and choke out her gratitude to the man for what he had done for her sister. Despite Sansa’s unwavering faith in her, Arya had not been lying that day on the ramparts of Winterfell. She had seen her sister’s scars, she had seen the darkness in her eyes. Arya did not know if she could have survived what her sister had endured. She doubted even Sansa would have survived much longer.

Sansa was a complicated woman, Arya had learned upon her return to Winterfell. Far more complicated than Arya ever would have imagined in the midst of their shared childhood. Sansa's ability to play the game of thrones unnerved her - Arya would not deny it. She was distrustful of politicians and people who treated others as if they were simply pieces in cyvasse to move around at their pleasure. For a time, Arya had feared Sansa had become one of them. Arya had mourned in the privacy of her own mind, certain that Sansa had truly been lost in King's Landing. She had feared that Cersei had succeeded in shaping Sansa in her image. 

The world - Sansa's world, _her_  world, whether she liked it or not - was not as simple as all that. Arya learned it quickly enough. She had watched Sansa order Petyr Baelish's execution - the necessary and fitting punishment for all he had done, all he _could_  have done, had he more time - and Arya had seen her weep for him in the godswood. She had seen the fury that ignited in Sansa's eyes at the thought of innocents dying, only to see her embrace Theon Greyjoy as if he were an anchor keeping her from drifting off to sea. 

Arya would not pretend to understand how Sansa's heart beat so indiscriminately, how she still managed to find forgiveness within herself. She would not pretend to understand her sister. But Arya understood enough to see Sansa's capacity for love. All of Winterfell had seen the bitter tears that Sansa had shed for the last of Balon Greyjoy's sons. Arya had worried that she would never see her sister smile again. Watching Lyarra and Theon now, remembering how deeply Sansa had loved caring for little Rickon and even Bran when they had been just babes, Arya wondered if there was ever a day when Sansa _didn't_  smile.

She couldn't accept Theon Greyjoy the way Sansa had. But she would gladly embrace whatever brought her sister peace and happiness, and she _knew_  that Lyarra and Theon had done that.

Sensing the conflict within Jon, Arya stood, drawing the gaze of everyone in the room.

"Bran, why don't you bring Mother and Father in here?" Arya suggested, arching an eyebrow upward. Bran had made no headway with Rickon, whose head jerked upward at the mention of Ned and Cat. "I'm sure they want to see you and Rickon, and meet their grandchildren."

Something strange and entirely _Bran_  flashed across the eyes that often turned white and unseeing. It was jarring, but not unwelcome, before Arya recognized the near-scowl that accompanied it. Bran had not seen his parents since before his fall, she remembered. He had kept his distance in the godswood, and in Sansa's solar, but Arya had simply attributed it to the way he often held himself apart, claiming all that was left of Bran Stark had disappeared. Though, Arya supposed that was no longer true. 

The Starks certainly had no shortage of hurts and betrayals to wade their way through - but this was Arya’s second return to Winterfell. She had no plans to take it for granted - nor would she stand by idly, and allow her family to do just that. 

Lyarra, who had looked quite put out at Arya’s interruption - and the attention being diverted away from her - now seemed quiet and contemplative, causing Arya’s stomach to flip uncomfortably as she noticed the resemblance. “Your mother and father are Mama’s mother and father,” she stated, half question and half declaration. 

Arya nodded, crouching down so that she was eye level with Lyarra, grey eyes meeting grey. “That’s right. And I promise, they are going to _adore_  you.” Arya knew it to be certain, but she could understand Lyarra’s hesitation. She was clearly familiar with the stories of her mother’s siblings, babbling excitedly about Arya’s adventures at sea, but she had made no mention of the grandparents she had never known.

Even when Arya returned to Winterfell and reunited with her siblings, Sansa rarely spoke of their parents. Jon had spoken of them more, in the short time that they had been reunited, when dragons and Others and silver haired Targaryen queens weren’t occupying all of their time. At the height of Baelish’s manipulations, Arya had been angered enough to assume Sansa no longer cared about her Stark parents, fully accepting the cruel tutors of manipulation that she had found in King’s Landing. In truth, Arya had eventually come to realize the depths of Sansa’s pain. She had confided in Arya one night - deep into the dark hours, when nightmares had kept sleep at bay, and Arya had chosen to sit quietly by her wan-faced sister - that Joffrey had made Sansa stare at their father’s head on a spike. Arya had nearly retched at the thought. She had still been in King’s Landing when she learned of Robb’s and Catelyn’s brutal murders - Joffrey had likely taken delight in her suffering. It had always been difficult for Sansa to speak of her parents.

“Will you be back?” Lyarra’s voice was quiet, but strong. It was that, more than anything, that reminded Arya of her sister. “When you said goodbye to Mama, no one thought you were coming back.” 

Arya did not dismiss the girl’s fears, simply nodded solemnly. “I will come back Lyarra.”

The smile that stretched across the little girl’s face drew one to Arya’s own lips, and she straightened, her eyes shining brightly. Arya had died at sea, and she did not remember it. But it didn’t matter now. 

_ A girl is Arya Stark of Winterfell, and I have come home. _

* * *

**ROBB**

Robb was surprised when the door shut behind the three of them, to suddenly find his arms full of his little sister. Ever since waking up in the godswood, Arya had seemed so strange and distant. She had never been as warm or affable as Bran and Rickon, but cold was never an adjective Robb would have used during their childhood to describe his youngest sister. The hug, a quick and fierce thing, was more like the Arya he remembered, but it still caught him off guard with its suddenness. 

"I missed you Robb," she whispered into his tunic. "I killed the Freys for you."

He pulled away sharply, his eyes narrowing on her. Arya looked stricken by her sudden admission, her own eyes fixed on where her hands had grasped at his forearms, suddenly releasing him as if his very touch burned her. Arya's eyes remained on the place her hands had been only a moment before, and Robb swallowed, trying to understand her words. His sister, his little sister, Arya Underfoot, who never seemed to do as she was told, who dreamed of being a knight, of joining sigils together, of being High Septon - she had _killed_. For him. There was no denying the truth in her eyes, as impossible as everything else was to discern. His sister had killed.

His other sister had lived to be queen.

Robb forced himself to remain in the moment, and his hand instinctively reached up to tilt Arya's chin upward, so that her gaze was locked with his. She was older than him now, he realized, dazed. She must be. 

" _Thank you_ ," Robb said, his voice soft and sincere. He didn't know anything more. He didn't know how Arya had killed them, how _Arya_  had been the ones to kill the Freys, but she had avenged him. She had avenged the Red Wedding, her brother, her mother. The sister she had never known. The nephew - Talisa had been so _certain_  it would be a boy - that she would never know. Robb had watched her in the nursery, for several moments. She had never been particularly careful with Rickon and Bran while they were babes. Robb knew even less about this version of his sister than he had when she was still a troublesome girl, but the image of her gentle smiles at Sansa's children - Sansa's _bastards_  - was firmly entrenched in Robb's memory. She should have been an aunt long ago, he lamented. She should have known his son.

Seemingly uncomfortable with the moment of tenderness, Arya simply nodded and pulled away. Robb sighed, and his eyes drifted over to Jon, who was looking at him carefully. Robb held back another sigh, uncertain how to speak to his - his _cousin_. He had been stunned by Jon's declaration before he left the private solar. Robb had barely managed to wrap his mind around it, before his father was confessing his long-held secret - the treason that could have ripped all of Westeros apart, had myths and legends - if Sansa was to be believed - not done so first. Jon Snow was no Snow at all. He was a Stark. A Stark and a Targaryen, legitimized. 

Robb didn't recognize him, in more ways than one. It was a disconcerting thought, but he refused to shy away from it. They had both just been boys when they left Winterfell. Jon had been prepared to dedicate his life to the Wall at fifteen. Robb had been a king at seventeen, and now they were both dead and brought back to life. Apparently this was Jon's second miracle of such a sort. Their paths had diverged since they had departed. Robb had become a king, Jon a Lord Commander. Jon's face carried scars that Robb could not identify. He once had known every scar on the other man's body. He was older than Robb as well. It choked the air in Robb's lungs to realize. Arya, Jon, Sansa - they were all older. They had all lived a life in which Robb had been dead, and their worlds had moved forward. 

His boyhood arrogance aside, Robb was not quite so pompous as to believe the world would stop when his heart did. But when he had received word that Joffrey Baratheon had taken his father's head, Robb had felt like it had. He had felt like the world ended with Ned Stark's life. Even the war, endless and brutal and terrible, felt as though it existed within the moment of Ned's death, stretched out over years. Robb had never allowed himself to stop and consider the _after_. Not even with Talisa, not even when his wife had tried to pull him into such dreams of the future. He hadn't dared linger in those moments for long, because he had been trapped in the infinite perdition of that war. 

His siblings though, had lived past that moment. They had lived their own wars, and faced their own deaths. It terrified Robb in a way he could not explain. His siblings had _died_ , and he hadn't been there. He had been dead himself. But he was their oldest brother. It was his _duty_  to protect them. He hadn't managed to protect any of them, and now they were all older. Robb had _failed_  them.

Jon seemed to sense the hopelessness welling within Robb, for he reached out, grasping Robb's shoulder with his hand, steadying him. Robb gave him a nod of gratitude, taking a breath, reaching within himself for a sense of composure. 

"I need to understand," Robb finally said, looking between Arya and Jon. "I don't understand this world, even though this is my home. I don't understand what has happened, because no one is bloody _explaining_  anything. I don't understand my _sister_  who is the _queen_. I don't understand what has happened. I _need_  to understand." Robb had never struggled with words the way Jon seemed to, especially when anywhere in vicinity of a pretty woman. He struggled now. Sansa's palpable anger still felt like a blazing heat burnt onto his skin. Her knifelike words were still embedded in his skin.

_"Theon Greyjoy did more to save me than my trueborn Stark brother."_

Robb had wanted to scream at the words, wanted to make his throat raw with the sheer force of his anger and sorrow and regret. Her words had been a swift condemnation, a dismissal, an admission that despite death, despite time, despite _everything_  she had not forgiven him for leaving her in King's Landing. He had been a _king_. They were fighting a war, for their father, their family, the North. The price of war was high. The price of war had been his sisters, his wife, his son, his mother, his _life_. Robb had been forced to choose as a king, not as the brother who had lifted his furs to allow his trembling sister - only three years old - to climb into his bed after a nightmare. Robb had chosen his people, as any king should. He would have thought that a queen would understand the costliness of such a decision.

Perhaps she understood, and refused to forgive Robb despite it. Perhaps the queen and the former king had that much in common. 

Arya and Jon were simply looking at him, waiting, as if sensing there were more words still to spill from his mouth, more confusion he needed to voice, lest it strangle him before he could question what place he held in this world, if not king, if not brother. Robb kept his mouth clenched firmly, refusing to voice them aloud. Jon had made it clear that he cared little for any argument over Sansa's children, and Arya had sided with Jon enough as a child for Robb to know where she would stand on the issue.

They simply didn't _understand_. Arya had never been good at understanding the complexities and politics of wedding and bedding. Oh she had certainly understood the necessity of alliances, but propriety had never been a point where Arya had excelled. Jon, even if he was no bastard after all, had been raised as one. He had likely understood what Arya hadn't - he had probably understood better than any of the Stark children, his very _existence_  being a stain upon Eddard Stark's honor. 

Robb didn’t know the circumstances that lead to Sansa’s children - and he would readily admit, he hadn’t been much of a position to request that information from his sister. Neither would he deny her the comfort of whatever dalliance she had indulged in - for her defensiveness implied it had certainly been a consensual arrangement, if not one she had enjoyed. Robb would be hypocritical to lambast her, when he was all too aware of the ramifications of his own _comforts_.

But bastards were another thing altogether. Legitimized or not, a bastard could destabilize an entire realm, and if they were truly only a handful of years away from the great wars Sansa had referenced, then the North was not nearly as stable as it would be eventually. Not only could the presence of bastards affect Sansa’s marriage prospects - even as a queen - it could have devastating consequences for her trueborn children.

It frustrated Robb to no end. Sansa had been there when Maester Luwin rasped about the Blackfyre Rebellions. She had clung onto his every word, her face becoming solemn and grave - the closest Robb ever saw her to resembling their lord father - as Maester Luwin extolled the dangers of bastards, and how they could easily supplant trueborn heirs.

Robb wished his sister every joy, every shred of happiness left in the world. He had sworn to himself as a child, many times over, not simply to protect his younger siblings, but to protect their smiles. Particularly Sansa, as they grew older, and Robb noticed - even from a distance - how easily his kindhearted sister could become swept away in fantasy and song. She was quick to smile, unlike Jon, or Father, or even Mother. She had smiled so often and so beautifully. Robb wanted to see her smile for all his days, to hear Arya’s yelps of triumph from the yards, Rickon’s happy laughter, Bran’s excited observations. There had been such joy in the Winterfell of his youth.

He had seen some of that same joy in the nursery. He couldn’t simply look at Lyarra and not feel his heart tremble for his niece, for what could have been. He felt the very same desire, upon seeing her smile, to ascertain her happiness. She was a Stark, she was his kin.

But she was also a bastard, and she _complicated_  matters. To say nothing of the line of succession. Gods, what had Sansa been _thinking_? Robb knew the strength of women. Catelyn had been one of his closest advisors during the war, and had never failed to put him in his place when he fell into the trappings of perceiving a woman as weaker. Dacey Mormont had served as a member of his personal guard, Talisa had displayed a quiet strength that Robb had marveled at, and fallen in love with more every day. His own sisters had been forged from the fires of the world Robb had left them to burn in, molded into something as sharp and hard as Valyrian steel. 

And yet the Stark line had passed down through the male heirs for a millenia. There had been female heirs, but only when the king or lord of Winterfell had died without male issue. Sansa had a son, young as he might be. 

Sansa had accused him - rightly so - of not understanding the new world he found himself in. It was not the same world he had died in, one in which a king could be murdered by his own bannerman at a wedding, the regards of an enemy house delivered through cruel, sneering lips. It was a world in which dragons had apparently roamed, and White Walkers had marched. A world in which a Northern queen did away with the primogeniture that had dated back to the Kings of Winter. A world in which Robb Stark no longer existed. 

He refused to remain in the dark, unaware and ill-footed. He needed answers, and Robb suspected that Arya or Jon would know how to get them.

Arya stared at him, the weight of consideration in her gaze making Robb squirm, though he tried to remain still. She began walking forward and Robb frowned. He had sought her for _answers_  not adventures.

“Where are you going?” Robb demanded, a touch of exasperation creeping into his voice. Arya appeared to ignore him, and kept striding forward. Gods, if this was how Sansa had felt as a child, often being tasked with making sure Arya did what was expected of her, Robb could hardly blame her for the constant friction that had existed between the two sisters - a friction that seemed to have disappeared, based on their previous interaction. “Sansa requested that we stay in the royal apartments.” The request had truly been a command, but Arya had never been good at listening to authority. Robb very much doubted that had changed.

“Robb, if you truly want to understand, you’re going to have to _see_ , not just listen to me,” Arya explained simply. “Just follow me. I know how to go unnoticed. Keep quiet, and don’t draw attention to yourself.”

Fighting back the urge to toss his hands in the air in frustration, Robb sighed, meeting Jon’s glance. The other man simply shrugged, and began to follow Arya, leaving Robb behind for a moment, before hurrying after his brother and sister, determined to see whatever it was that Arya had deemed so important for him to comprehend the strangeness of this world, where he managed to fit.

* * *

**JON**

Jon followed Arya's lead in silence, holding his questions deep in his chest, a contrast to Robb, who wore his confusion plainly on his face. He held his tongue as Jon did, but the frustration was roiling off of him in waves. Jon's own was restrained, but he felt it swelling within his breast. Robb was spoiling for a fight, and Jon feared he would choose an inopportune moment to do so. His patience could only last so long, and the only Starks who seemed to know anything about this life - save for Sansa - were reluctant to divulge too much too soon.

Surprisingly, the trio managed to avoid any servants as they quietly crept their way through Winterfell, quickly making their way across the courtyard, into the First Keep. It left Jon out of sorts, wondering after the household staff he had been so familiar with. As the bastard of Winterfell, many of the servants had taken pity on him, when not under the watchful eyes of Lady Stark. Jon had often received kindly smiles and warm hands ruffling his hair as a boy. Though he was a man now, Jon felt a keen sort of longing that took him by surprise. However, the emotion was quickly waylaid by confusion when Arya ducked behind a tapestry, beckoning her brothers to follow her. Jon and Robb exchanged a glance, a shared bewilderment, before deciding it was in their best interests to do as Arya had instructed.

He didn't see the door until Arya was already swinging it open, seemingly pulling the stones of Winterfell back, before Jon's mind fully grasped what his eyes presented. A tiny smirk danced on Arya's features as she turned back to face her stunned companions.

"Sansa wrote me often, regarding the changes and reconstruction of Winterfell," Arya explained in a hushed tone. "She mentioned needing a personal entrance to her solar. Some of the lords and ladies developed a habit for accosting her in an effort to hold her ear." Jon's lips pulled into a grimace, remembering the many times he had felt tugged in a thousand different directions - even in his short tenure as Lord Commander. He could only imagine Sansa's own experience was considerably worse, given the much greater responsibilities of a monarch. "She'll be in her solar now, taking meetings I'm sure." 

Arya lead Jon and Robb down a short, narrow corridor, stopping at what appeared to be the second door, but she made no move to open it. In the darkness Jon could see her turn and press a finger to her lips, indicating the need for silence, though neither he nor Robb had made any noise. As Jon edged closer to the door that lead to Sansa's solar, he realized he could hear voices. They were muffled slightly, by the thickness of Winterfell's walls, but they were distinctive enough for Jon to make out the shape of the conversation, and and gain an understanding of the tension the three of them had happened upon.

"I don't understand," Jon heard a woman say. "Why are they coming _here_?" 

He glanced at Arya who was frowning slightly, and squinting at the door, as if doing so would allow her to see right through the wood. "Meera Reed," she finally said softly, before moving closer to the door, eyes scanning for any cracks she might find to peek through.

An audible sigh could be heard, and then Sansa began to speak.

"It's neutral territory, is the official reason being given. I suspect there are other motives at play, but as the North is a separate kingdom, there couldn't be claims of preferential treatment."

Jon frowned, trying to discern what it was Sansa was talking about. Arya waved toward Jon and Robb, gesturing them forward to where the wood paneling of the door dipped inward, creating a slightly larger crack, big enough to peer through. Arya crouched down, leaving more room for Jon and Robb above her. Jon allowed Robb to take the first glance, before leaning forward to observe the room himself. 

There was a small gathering of lords and ladies in Sansa's solar. Jon was not surprised that he didn't recognize any of them, but he _was_  surprised to see that the women outnumbered the men. There was only a slender, sour looking man, a stern lord with bushy brows, and a long, lanky looking man - barely more than a boy - who kept his lips pursed together, as if to prevent any words from tumbling out of his lips. 

"But why would we accept their request? What business have we with the South?" The sour looking man was persisting. From this angle, Jon couldn't catch a glimpse of Sansa, save for her copper hair pooling down her back, but he could sense the irritation. He could picture her face clearly in her mind, the brightness of her eyes, the slightest pinch of her lips that betrayed her annoyance. It was dissimilar to the faces she had pulled as a child, whenever Arya proved herself a nuisance to Sansa, or something displeased her, and yet Jon could call to mind the exact face he was certain she was wearing now. 

"Though the affairs of the Southerners are their own, it is imprudent to claim that we have no business with them, Lord Cerwyn," Sansa reprimanded simply. The speaker - Lord Cerwyn - blustered a bit, but Sansa didn't allow him the opportunity to continue, holding up her hand for his silence. Jon's eyebrow raised when he realized that Lord Cerwyn granted it, without even a tic of his jaw to indicate any resentment at being cut off. "Winter is still strong across Westeros, and we have received no word from the Citadel as to when spring will come. Although we have made great strides in the years since the Long Night, and that is due mostly to the efforts of the North, we cannot disregard the deals we have struck with the Southern lords and ladies. We have come to benefit from this winter, but if the South falls to chaos due to a crisis of succession, the North will suffer as well."

There were some grumbling among the lords and ladies, and Jon saw Sansa's posture stiffen, before he pulled back, allowing Robb to step forward and observe the meeting. 

"If Highgarden were to fall, for instance, and winter were to last another ten years, the North would suffer for it. Many would starve, and even more would be lost in the South."

"And if war should break out?" Another voice, this time female, called out. Jon noted the way Robb seemed to straighten, his whole body tensing with something like shock. Jon supposed more of the lords and ladies were familiar to the former heir of Winterfell and King in the North, but he wondered what it was about this woman that shocked him so.

"If there is another war, all of Westeros will suffer." Sansa's tone was as grim as her words, and for a beat there was silence.

"Aye, but do we trust the Southerners to have any common sense? What if they try to call their bannermen while in the North? What then?" It was the same woman speaking, and Jon could admit, she had a point. He hadn't enough of an understanding of the new political landscape to grasp the full extent of the conversation at hand, but if Southern lords and ladies were truly on the brink of war, Jon didn't want them anywhere near Winterfell. 

When Sansa spoke, however, he could hear the hint of a smile in her voice. "I do believe that Lord Tyrion intended to prevent that very possibility, by requesting this kingsmoot take place in the North."

Robb's gaze met Jon's, stunned and wild with utter confusion. Jon could only imagine his was much the same. _Kingsmoot_? 

"No army has ever crossed the Neck in winter," Sansa continued, oblivious to the sheer bafflement of her family, hidden away in the private entrance to her solar. "Any of the armies would be fools to invade."

"The navies?" A male voice spoke this time, his tongue heavy with condescension, and Jon frowned.

"The Redwyne navy is still in the process of rebuilding, as is the Crown's. The only navy that would pose a true threat is the Ironborn. Which is why I have requested the Night's Watch reinforce all of our ports, as well as several other possible entry points alongside our coast. There is every likelihood that it will be completely necessary - Yara Greyjoy is stubborn and defiant, yes, but she is not her uncles. She is intelligent, and by all accounts, a good leader. I doubt she would attempt to wage war while in the North."

The caveat seemed important, but no one else seemed to dwell on it. Jon wondered how the girl who always had a song on her lips, the girl who had told him - kindly - to always compliment a lady's name, had come to speak so easily of strategy and invasion. Both winter and war had come, it appeared, and no one, not even the Starks - _especially_  not the Starks - had been spared its ravenous bite.

Jon's searching gaze met Robb, and examined the troubled storm of emotions brewing behind his Tully blue eyes. Arya had brought them here to give them understanding, but Jon wondered if he had ever felt less sure-footed. Sansa had made mention of the Night's Watch being tasked with reinforcing multiple ports - not just Eastwatch. Had even the Night's Watch - an institution nearly as ancient as the Wall itself - been simply another casualty of this change? Jon felt an unexpected bout of sympathy for Robb rising within him. He could freely admit that such drastic transformations were unnerving to say the very least.

"If the Southron kingsmoot is held in the North, it will give us an opportunity to have a voice where otherwise we would have no say," a calm, contemplative voice pointed out. Robb shuffled aside, nodding Jon forward so that he could once again press upon the crack to pay witness to the meeting of lords and ladies. 

"Lady Manderly is correct," Sansa agreed, her curtain of red hair moving as she nodded her head. "The future king of Westeros will determine trade with the North for the next several years, possibly even decades. This decision is not one the North can afford to take lightly, even if it does not rest in our hands. And," Sansa added after a moment, "Whoever the king is, he shall be the successor of my brother. Brandon _Stark_."

There was a heavy pause in the room as the lords and ladies seemed to contemplate Sansa's words. Finally the silence was broken by the woman Arya had identified earlier as Lady Reed. 

"Well then, Your Grace. Who do you intend to make a king out of?"

Low chuckles rippled across the room, and when Sansa replied, it was easy for Jon to imagine her lips pressing together tightly, warding off a smile in favor of appearing serious - though nothing could diminish the way her eyes would shine just a touch brighter, whenever Sansa smiled, with her lips or not. 

"By hosting the kingsmoot in the North we may be able to influence the decision, or at least have a say, but I would not be so bold as to place a king on the Southron throne."

Jon and Robb exchanged another glance. Sansa spoke as if such a feat were actually _possible_ , and it was simply a matter of overstepping one's boundaries. Just who was Sansa Stark, that she could be named a kingmaker of even the South?

"But surely you have given thought to who should sit upon the new throne?" Lord Cerwyn persisted, and Sansa sighed.

"I have given it much thought. It is truly as difficult a question as Lord Tyrion implied in his letters. I must admit, I took no small amount of pleasure in confessing to him that I had suggested such an issue might someday arise." There was a touch of smugness to her voice, and Jon was surprised to realize he was smiling in the shadows. "But it is an issue that must be dealt with swiftly. Members of the lower nobility, and even some smallfolk have petitioned specific names which will be taken into consideration, as Lord Tyrion has explained." 

Jon watched as one of Sansa's hands flew up to her face. He wondered if she was rubbing at the spot between her brows, the patch of skin above her nose she had often worried as a child, whenever Arya did something foolish or irksome. Jon had once japed that Sansa would rub the skin clean off her face if she continued, since Arya was certainly not likely to change her habits. Sansa had smiled, a quick, bright thing, full of surprise and wonder, before she had disappeared to follow her septa dutifully. 

"The strongest argument is the claim of right by conquest," Sansa explained. The lords and ladies seemed to be paying close attention to her words, their eyes firmly fixed on the Northern queen. "Which would give Lord Baratheon the best claim, as the only surviving member of his House." The tiniest movement below Jon forced him to glance down. Arya appeared unmoving, but there was a stiffness to her body that had not been there before. "However, it is unlikely he will ascend."

"Why not?" Lady Manderly questioned, her brow raised. "He would certainly be favorable to the North. Should we not cast our lot with him?"

Sansa sighed again. "No. If the argument for right by conquest is introduced, Lord Tyrion would also have a claim to the throne. Despite how the crown came into her hands, no one can deny that Cersei Lannister was the last person to ever sit upon the Iron Throne. Lord Tyrion would certainly not allow anyone to forget such a fact." Sansa paused for a moment. "Outwardly favoring Lord Baratheon would also be likely to do far more harm than good. He is already seen as being friendly with the North - many would accuse him of simply being a Northern puppet, rather than a king with the South's true interests at heart."

Jon frowned. Just who was this Lord Baratheon, and how was he so friendly with the North that it could jeopardize a legitimate claim to the throne of Westeros?

"Besides," Sansa continued loftily, "He would hate me forever if I made him a king. He barely suffers his lordship as it is."

* * *

 

**SANSA:**

It was only mid-afternoon, and Sansa felt exhaustion creeping into her bones as she made her way back to the Great Keep. Meeting with the Northern lords and ladies was always taxing, even when there was only a small handful she had to treat with. Sansa had been fortunate that some of the more disagreeable lords and ladies had not been present, but she knew it was only a matter of time before they descended upon Winterfell upon learning of the Southron kingsmoot due to take place in the North. And that was to say nothing of what would happen when it was discovered that the once deceased Starks had seemingly risen from the dead.

Upon dismissing the handful of nobles that had gathered in her solar to discuss the most recent letter from King's Landing, Sansa had devoted the rest of her morning to poring over various legal documents and charters, ignoring the burgeoning ache in her temples all the while. She was reluctant to reintroduce her family to Winterfell until she had sorted out the absolute _mess_  of claims this second life had created. Her father had been Warden of the North, her brother had been King in the North and the Trident, and her cousin had been named King in the North - to say nothing of his Targaryen identity. Though there were few Targaryen loyalists left in Westeros, there were still those who forswore any Baratheon or Lannister claim to the throne, rejecting the idea of right by conquest. Jon presented a whole host of complicated problems. 

When she could no longer deny the hunger settling like a stone in her belly, Sansa had finally abandoned the records, temporarily, and requested her lunch be delivered to her solar. Meera had agreed to act as her handmaiden for the time being, as the only other soul Sansa had trusted with the news of the godswood, apart from Brienne and Podrick. The crannogwoman had seen her fair share of magic and death, and apart from a scowl at the mention of Bran, she had simply accepted this strange work of the Old gods.

Reaching the sun solar, Sansa pushed open the door with a soft sigh, relieved to find it empty. Sansa knew she would have to find Theon soon, feeling the familiar ache in her breasts that indicated he would soon need to feed, but for now, Sansa relished the solitude. She immediately felt a stroke of guilt, but she did not dwell on it long. Her children, though she wanted them with her fiercely, were likely surrounded by the once dead members of Sansa's family. Though she had missed every member with a sharp and painful ache, but it was taxing, dealing with the uninhibited ocean swell of questions and emotions that accompanied their return to the living. It was exhausting in every sense of the word - for Sansa to explain one thing, it was necessary to explain a dozen other actions that had lead to a particular outcome. 

The fight from the morning certainly hadn't helped. Though the fierce rush of anger had cooled considerably, the rush of satisfaction Sansa had felt in the moment had quickly faded into something closer to misery. Her words, though containing truth, had been spoken in anger. They had been the hurt of a young girl, left to the lions, not a winter-hardened queen who knew the meaning of sacrifice. Sansa knew she would have to speak more with Robb, in time, but she regretted the harshness of her words. 

She had known he would be upset by her son's name. Sansa had struggled with the knowledge herself, and had not even named the babe until nearly a sennight after his birth. Sansa had argued herself into dizzying circles over the matter, until it became clear that there were only two arguments to be had. Theon had betrayed the Starks, and he had done _terrible_  things. What he had done later in life would never be enough for redemption in the eyes of some. Theon had murdered innocents, and he had thrown away one family's love for the hopes of earning praise and honor from another. He had also saved Sansa at the risk of his very soul - for Sansa _knew_  her erstwhile husband would have never been so kind as to kill Theon if they had been caught. She knew what it felt like to long for death in the unforgiving grasp of someone as cruel as the bastard of the Dreadfort had been. He had chosen to fight for Winterfell. He had died to save her brother. The facts on both side were equally significant and damning. Sansa had known that her family would have been horrified if she chose to name her son for such a man - no matter what he had done. Sansa knew many would consider it a poor choice of a name.

But she _missed_  Theon.

That was simply what it had come down to, in the end. Sansa felt the keen pain of loss like a knife lodged firmly under her ribs. It was a pain so sharp that sometimes she forgot how to breathe around the blood that seemed to be filling her lungs with the sheer sorrow of it. The loss of Theon was wholly different than any other member of her family even - 

It was different. Sansa had learned long ago that no one deserved anything in life, and the gods wouldn't give it to anyone if they did. Rewards and consequences were not meted out based on a person's choices or character. Things simply _happened_. People lived, people died. It was the brutal simplicity of life. No one deserved anything.

_And yet._

Theon had deserved to live. Sansa and Theon had deserved life, peace, happiness. It was all Sansa had wanted for him, when stripped away to her barest desires. She had wanted independence for the North - the independence her brother and mother had died for, the battle she had chained herself to, the cause that had renewed purpose in her life, to see her family's work done. Sansa had found peace and comfort in the North - the home that had been dangled in front of her like a carrot, the prized kingdom that had turned her into a bargaining chip for men to feast upon. She had reclaimed it in her family's name, and Sansa had found her peace in her land.

She had wanted peace for Theon as well. He would have died to get her to Castle Black, and Sansa would have fought to give him rest. He had died well, Bran had told her. He had died a good man, defending his home. He had been a Stark in the end, and he had died for Winterfell, for the family he had betrayed.

But he had been a Greyjoy too, and he died far from the sea. It was a pain Sansa carried in her heart every day. It was reflected in Yara Greyjoy's furious eyes, whenever the two women met - though such instances had been few and far in-between in the five years since the Battle of Winterfell. 

Her son would know the sea, Sansa had resolved. He had no blood relation to his namesake, and Sansa doubted she would ever be able to speak of him to her own Theon. To speak of the complicated man was to speak of another, to divulge her darkest moments and her greatest pains. Sansa doubted she could ever bare that part of her soul to even her child. Theon Greyjoy, as Sansa knew him, existed only in her memory, and that of his living sister. Perhaps Yara would pass him on. Perhaps he would die again - _he would not rise again, but he had been stronger and harder_  - when there was no one left to remember him. Sansa did not believe herself strong enough to pass him on, but her son would know the sea. Sansa had named her son Theon, not only as a comfort to her aching soul, her trembling loneliness, but in an attempt to grant him peace. She had meant her words to Robb earlier that morning - Theon Stark would know a life of peace. He would know the sea. Perhaps he would find his namesake there, in the peace Theon Greyjoy should have received.

A gentle knock sounded against the door, and Sansa's heart jumped in her chest. Even after all of these years, she recognized the sound of her mother's knuckles against a wooden door.

"Come in," Sansa called softly, and watched her mother - her beautiful, strong lady mother - enter the room slowly, Sansa's sobbing son held in her arms, as if he was the most precious thing she had ever seen. Sansa's heart soared again, and Catelyn gave her a soft smile.

"I thought that we should speak."

Sansa swallowed, holding back the tears that were threatening to gather behind her eyes, and she nodded, feeling for all the world like a thirteen year old girl again. 

"I would like that very much."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thoughts? next chapter we'll finally get some more jon x sansa interaction (with rickon!) as well as a few necessary conversations. the political realm will also begin to take shape in the minds of the resurrected starks, and take priority for sansa, as important preparations are made, and lords/ladies are entertained.


	6. and i run from wolves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moments of peace are precious, fragile things, as all of the Starks are about to be reminded.

There is love in her daughter's eyes as she reaches for the babe in Catelyn's arms. She almost protests, the shape of the words already resting on her tongue, but Catelyn easily passes the tiny boy - her _grandson_  - to Sansa, who smiles down at him lovingly. Catelyn feels her heart break the smallest bit, witnessing the moment of tenderness. She had not been there to see her daughter holding her first babe, or even her second. But she was here now, and she felt as though she would never drink her fill of it. 

Sansa backed away once young Theon was in her arms, and she gestured for her mother to follow. Catelyn did so blindly, allowing Sansa to lead her to the small settee. Catelyn took a seat across from Sansa, who began fiddling with the laces of her dress, before bringing Theon to her breast. A bite of her lip was the only hint of discomfort Sansa gave, and Catelyn felt another watery smile stretch across her lips at the sight. She had nursed each of her children herself as well, refusing any offer of a wet nurse. She had wanted her babes to know only her. It had certainly been difficult at times, especially by the time Rickon had arrived, and Catelyn was then a mother of five, with the duties of the lady of Winterfell to attend to. 

"How do you find the time?" Catelyn found herself asking, before she had even thought through the words. She gestured at Theon with a small smile, before letting her eyes drift back up to Sansa's - blue meeting blue. 

"It's difficult," Sansa sighed softly, settling against the pillowed back of the chaise. "With Lyanna, I had to employ a wet nurse around this time. She was born so soon into my rule, and I couldn't always be there." She bit her lip again, and Catelyn bit her tongue. Sansa had been so _young_. Older than Catelyn had been, when she gave birth to Robb, but a new queen, and unwed. She did not dare bring up the subject again, the lashing Sansa had delivered that morning still fresh on her mind. "Things have...settled since then. As much as one could expect. It isn't always easy to find time, but the people have grown used to seeing me with my children." 

Her words were carefully chosen, designed to not only answer Catelyn's question, but forestall others that might have accompanied, or lingered in the shadow of words Catelyn did not speak. Her heart ached for the little girl who had never known how to lie, and who had known how to hold her tongue, but never control it. That girl had rode off to King's Landing, and Catelyn had feared she would never see her again. Now, sitting across from her daughter, a woman grown, a queen, a _mother_ , she feared she had been correct in her fear. 

Catelyn spread her palms across her dress, smoothing down the fabric as she struggled for the right words. What was there to say to a daughter she had not seen in years, a daughter who had gone on to live an entire life without her? She felt as if she were choking on all the possibilities of what to say, tangled in her mouth, unable to spit out even one of them. 

"Lyarra?" She finally managed to ask. It was hardly the most pressing question at the moment, but it was possibly the easiest for her mouth to form. "Was there a reason you named your daughter Lyarra?" Catelyn's natural curiosity had taken over, and she scrutinized her daughter's soft smile.

"Yes," Sansa said simply, nodding her head, and glancing between her mother and her son. "I'm pleased to honor Father's mother, of course, but Lyarra wasn't named for her. She was born shortly after I received word that Arya's ship had been destroyed at sea. The name was too painful, but Lyarra was close enough, and reminiscent of Lyanna as well." 

Catelyn was surprised to hear that Sansa had thought of her aunt Lyanna. Everyone in the North knew how Ned and his brothers had adored their sister, however after her death, Ned had spoken of her so rarely. In fact, most of what his children knew about the woman had come from their uncle Benjen, who visited infrequently, and was quicker to speak than his elder brother. But, Catelyn realized with another painful twinge in her heart, Sansa had been all that was left of the Starks, the only one left to carry on the memories of the great House and its rich history. 

Like a swift blow to the gut, Cat let out a fierce hiss of air as understanding finally seemed to settle beneath her skin. Sansa had been _all that was left_. Ned had lost his head in King's Landing, Rickon and Bran had - no, Catelyn did not know what had happened to her sweet boys. Not truly. She only knew they had perished too. She and her firstborn had been murdered at her brother's wedding, and Arya had been lost at sea. Even Jon - no longer her husband's bastard, but no more loved in Catelyn's heart - had died. Sansa had truly been alone, the only Stark left in the world. The knowledge that her daughter had given birth to two bastards no longer seemed quite so sour on her tongue. 

Resolving to set aside her own discomfort with the idea of bastards being raised in Winterfell once more, Catelyn smiled gently at her daughter, ignoring the guardedness she saw in Sansa's eyes. It was only fair, she supposed. She was a woman grown and a queen, and Catelyn had treated her like she was the same child who had departed from Winterfell so many years ago, despite Sansa showing her in the limited time they had spent together, that she was anything but.

"I always knew you would make a wonderful queen," Catelyn said, her voice soft to reach across the abyss that yawned wide and ferocious between them. Once she had always known how to speak to her daughter. Once she had never been at a loss for words with Sansa, always so eager to please, so eager to make everyone proud. Catelyn was certain that yearning was still somewhere buried inside, but Sansa was far more than a young girl plucking at her threads now. She could not afford to chase her mother's skirts, begging for approval. Catelyn had to believe that there was a part of Sansa that still craved it. 

Sansa gave Catelyn a smile, but she could see that it was guarded. "You've hardly seen me as a queen."

Catelyn arched a brow. "I don't need to see it to know that it is true. I once thought you were made for the Southron court, that you would be happiest there." She could see the tightness in her daughter's figure, and Catelyn felt her heart sink lower in her chest. "I see now that you were always destined for the North." 

Ned had wanted Northern matches for his girls. It had been a regular argument between the two of them. Ned had been insistent; his daughters would wed men who were good and honorable and brave and gentle. Catelyn had been incensed to find that Ned believed no such men could be found south of the Neck. She had of course, wanted the very same for her daughters, but she had seen Sansa's loneliness. She had seen her love of songs and stories and courtly life, and she had feared for her. Catelyn's ears had always been keener than her husband's, and she had heard the grumbles of the lords, a Southron lady disguised as a wolf, like her mother who shed her scales for Northern furs. As much as Catelyn wanted a man who was good and honorable and brave and strong and gentle, she had wanted her daughter to wed a man she could love, just as Catelyn had learned to love Ned. 

Now she could see the evidence of her mistakes. Sansa, for all her love of the Southron songs and dances, was as Northern as her Arya, just as much a wild wolf as little Rickon. Catelyn was reminded, quite suddenly, of the first time she had met Ned Stark, the very night of their wedding. He was nothing like Brandon, she had despaired at the time, or even his younger brother, Benjen. Catelyn had never met Lyanna Stark, but she had seen the girl at Harrenhal. He was not like his sister either. Her father's men had called him the Quiet Wolf, and there were those in the North who wondered if he was a wolf at all. The whispers had faded during their marriage, and eventually Catelyn had forgotten they had ever existed. She doubted anyone dared to call Sansa anything but a wolf now. 

"You are happy though?" Catelyn prompted, staring at her daughter in earnest. "If death has taught me anything, it is that all I wish for is my children and their happiness." Pain blossomed in her belly as the memory of her brother's cursed wedding unfurled before her eyes, the images springing forth unbidden. She had not been quiet in her displeasure over her son's impulsive marriage, and though she had held her tongue, Catelyn held anger in her heart toward both Robb and her good-daughter, but the pain of watching their deaths was unimaginable. Robb had chased happiness at the cost of his life, and the life of his wife and unborn child. Catelyn would see her children happy, but she would not see history repeat itself. The gods had given her a second chance. She would not live through such horror again.

Sansa looked down at her son, her gaze soft and adoring. "I am. When Lyarra was born, I didn't think I had ever been so happy before," Sansa confessed, as if admitting a great secret. "And then...Theon. I was in mourning, certain I would never be happy again." Catelyn contemplated her daughter's words carefully. Whom had Sansa mourned? The father of her children, perhaps? But if the man was dead, why had she been so reluctant to speak his name? Robb's anger might have been quicker to dissipate, for he would never redirect it at Sansa or her children. If her lover had died, perhaps it might have been more forgivable, leaving Sansa unwed with two bastards. Or had Sansa sought the comfort of a lover out of grief? Catelyn stored the questions away, not daring to break the delicate moment with her daughter. 

"When you were born, I wished you every happiness," Catelyn whispered softly, her eyes focused on Theon's tuft of dark, Northern hair. "You were born in the winter, as you know. The first child since..." her voice petered out, and the silence suddenly seemed enormous between them. Her first babe since the bastard her husband had brought home from the South. Jon Snow, the boy who was no bastard at all, but a Targaryen prince. Would Catelyn have loved him more if she had known? He might not have threatened Robb's claim, but his very presence would have endangered them all. The tangled knot of it all seemed to choke Catelyn, and she swallowed before she could continue. "You were the first babe born of love." Catelyn felt no guilt in the admission; all the children were aware, to some degree. Robb had been conceived on her wedding night, when she and Ned had been but strangers to each other. He had been born of duty, but Sansa had come into the world years later, in the midst of winter, after the betrayal of Jon Snow, after Catelyn had learned that she might love Ned Stark yet. 

"I wished the same for my children," Sansa replied, her eyes - _Catelyn's_  eyes - now focused on her mother. "I want them to know only peace. My own life..." It was Sansa now, who trailed off, her eyes vacant, seeing something that Catelyn could not, though she would snatch whatever horrific image away from her daughter if she could, spare her the pain she had not been around to prevent. "They will not know war. Not as children. I will not let it touch them." Sansa's voice was full of steel where before it had been soft, hardened with the Northern ice that ran in the Stark veins. But for all her cold, Northern strength, it was Tully determination Catelyn saw in her daughter's clear blue eyes, her son cradled in her arms, as her hand reached across the space to grasp at her mother's. They remained that way for several minutes, wetness gathering in Catelyn’s eyes, until a series of rapid knocks fell against the wooden door, and Sansa tore her eyes away from Catelyn long enough to bid the visitor enter, and give her mother time enough to wipe at the tears that had spilled onto her cheeks.

* * *

**SANSA**

Sansa’s breath caught in her throat when she saw who was at the door. She felt her mother rise, rather than saw the action, for her eyes were focused firmly on her youngest brother. She saw Catelyn’s hand come to rest atop Rickon’s curls, but when he shrugged off her touch, she hesitated a moment.

“I suppose I’ll leave the two of you to talk then,” Catelyn said with clear reluctance. 

Sansa just nodded, and waited for her mother to shut the door, her gaze still resting on Rickon. As soon as they were left alone with the soft ‘click’ of the door, Sansa beckoned Rickon forward. He moved hesitantly, his gaze locked on Theon, nursing at Sansa’s breast.

“I used to carry you around Winterfell, you know,” Sansa finally spoke after what felt like a lifetime, her voice soft and gentle. “When you were just a babe.” Sansa had thought of it after when Lyarra had been born, and then Theon. Arya had teased her at the time, that Sansa had fancied Rickon one of her dolls. The comparison hadn’t been lost on her, but even then, Sansa would have been hard-pressed to call Rickon anything but a live babe; he had always been particularly wriggly. 

“Did you do that?” Rickon asked, gesturing to her nursing son.

“No,” Sansa responded with a small smile. “But Mother did.” 

Rickon nodded jerkily, and Sansa felt her heart sink. Did Rickon even remember her mother? He had been only six when Catelyn left Winterfell, never to return. He had been so young. Sansa hoped it was Catelyn that Rickon remembered, and not the horrors he had endured before meeting his end at Ramsay Bolton’s hand. 

Careful to keep Theon’s head cradled, Sansa reached her free hand to grasp at Rickon. To her slight surprise, he accepted the touch, even squeezing Sansa’s hand in return. 

“I have missed you,” Rickon,” Sansa said in earnest. Rickon’s was a death that had plagued sansa since before the day he had fallen. From the moment Sansa had learned just who had rickon, she had feared his fate. She knew firsthand the atrocities Ramsay had been capable of. Even with the physical distance between them, he had managed to reach across and plant hope deep within Sansa’s chest, every day that Rickon lived, before ration finally kicked in, and Sansa realized what Ramsay meant to do. She knew how Rickon’s death had haunted Jon. It certainly haunted Sansa. She had spent countless nights turning over the decisions wondering if there was an outcome in which her youngest brother might have survived. Sansa had come up with none, and yet the inevitability of it all was perhaps the cruelest part.

“Ramsay said,” Rickon began hesitantly, and Sansa’s eyes closed, wishing he had been spared the pain of remembering his murderer, “He said that he had you. That you had been his wife.” Rickon stared at Sansa with large, imploring eyes. “Sansa, it isn’t true, is it?” 

Sansa felt her heart break a little more at the desperation in her brother’s voice. 

"Oh Rickon."

The sadness in Sansa's voice was enough for Rickon. He was just a boy - he had been just a _bo_ y when he died, but he knew too much of the world. Rickon would never know the exact pain Sansa had endured at the hands of his murderer, and he would never know the precise truth of it all, but on some fundamental level, he _knew_. 

"I did not," Sansa began hesitantly, desperate to meet Rickon's eyes, though he refused to turn his head toward her, "I did not become his wife willingly. When Theon Greyjoy and I found the opportunity, we escaped." Sansa doesn't know if it was better for Rickon to hear. She had not been a traitor to the family, only a victim to be used in the bloody battle for the North that had ravaged Sansa as much as any of the winter lands. Sansa didn't know if it was better to hear of her escape, when both of them knew that if she had only waited a _few_  more days, she might have seen Rickon. They might have escaped together.

Only a few more days with Ramsay Bolton might very well have killed her, as it eventually did her brother.

She swallowed painfully, and _finally_ , Rickon met her eyes. His own were welled with tears, and Sansa shifted Theon against her, so that she could hold him with only one arm, and reach for her brother with her other. "I'm so sorry. I am so sorry, Rickon." Her brother allowed himself to be pulled closer to Sansa, until he was seated on the ground in front of her, his arms wrapped protectively around his legs. Sansa wished she could take the burdens from his chest, and remove the haunted gaze from his eyes. Sansa wished it had been _Rickon_  who had returned without his memories, as selfish a thought as it might have been. There were a thousand things Sansa wanted in that moment, but she knew it was a futile and selfish exercise to wallow in them all, and so she settled for letting her thumb run back and forth across the back of Rickon's hand as she began to hum a song from their past, letting the tune wash over both of them, occupying the space filled by terrible memories and fearsome ghosts. She felt Rickon settling underneath her touch, and Sansa let the barest smile curl around her lips, as her eyes followed the gentle slope of Rickon's shoulders, relaxing into the peacefulness of the moment, extending unbroken, until a single knock at the door echoed throughout the solar.

Meeting Rickon's gaze again, and seeing his eyes clear, albeit shiny, Sansa waited for him to give a tiny nod, before she called out.

"Enter."

* * *

**JON**

Almost as soon as Jon stepped inside the sunshine drenched solar, he paused, one foot still planted behind him at the threshold. The scene before him was intimate, with Rickon sitting at Sansa’s feet, her son suckling contentedly at her breast. Jon’s own words from earlier suddenly echoed in his mind. 

_ “She’s a mother.”  _

Jon had meant it when he snapped at Robb, but there was a distinct difference between recognizing the presence of children granted Sansa the title of ‘mother’, and witnessing Sansa in the midst of motherhood.

“Please shut the door behind you, Jon,” Sansa ordered, and Jon flushed, caught in the act of staring.

“Excuse me, Your Grace,” Jon apologized. “I’m interrupting.” 

Sansa was already shaking her head before Jon could politely retreat. “You’re not interrupting,” she insisted. “You’re family, Jon.”

Jon startled, wondering if mind-reading had been one of the many gifts Sansa had been blessed with since Jon had seen her last. How else could she have known that Jon was turning over their conversation in teh crypts yet again?

Sansa let out a small laugh, a soft, musical thing. “Your face is easy enough to read, once one has taken the time to know it,” Sansa explained, unprompted. 

He simply frowned. “And you do,” Jon said, more question than accusation. 

"I do," Sansa agreed, her voice soft and steady. Confused though he was by the strangeness and near _tenderness_  of the relationship that apparently existed between Sansa and himself, Jon found it comforting all the same, how readily Sansa seemed to accept his presence. Jon wondered if anyone else had noticed, just how at _e_ _ase_  Sansa appeared around him. Even with Robb and her parents, there had been a touch of tension. Jon had seen evidence of it in the tight lines of her neck, the sharpness of her mouth. The sharpness should have been familiar to Jon, for he was the bastard brother that had always made Sansa avert her eyes out of respect for her lady mother, and understanding of the stations life had allotted for them. Looking at Sansa now, however, it was the gentleness of Sansa's gaze, and the soft slope of her smile that Jon felt most familiar with. 

He did not dare place a name to the feeling, though he felt it in his breast. 

Finding himself standing in front of the settee Sansa sat upon, Jon found he suddenly did not know what to do with his hands. He wished he could turn back time to only a few moments ago, and press Sansa, give space to his insistent questions. Just _how_  did she learn his face? How had she come to read his expressions as easily as she had read the histories as a child? Already Sansa had proven herself to be more adept at truly _seeing_  Jon than even Robb. What life had he previously lived?

The spell had been broken, however, and Sansa's gaze was no longer trained on Jon. Instead her eyes had drifted down to her son, as she carefully switched the babe to her other breast. Jon averted his eyes respectfully, and suddenly found himself staring at his younger brother - cousin. 

Rickon's eyes, though nearly identical to Sansa's, were troubled. Jon felt his heart clench inside his chest, though he could not explain _why_. He remembered Rickon as the happiest of Starks, though all of them had been quick to smile as children, none quite so dour-faced as Jon. Rickon had been especially easy to entertain, his lips always curled back whether in a snarl or a smile. Often times one had followed the other. Robb had been crowned and battle-weary when he was granted the moniker _Young Wolf_. Rickon had been barely more than a babe when some lordling or another had chortled and declared him the wild wolf of Winterfell. Arya had pouted for nearly a moon, teeming with jealousy. 

Jon still saw such wildness in Rickon's eyes, but there was fear there too. The sort of fear that no one so young should ever experience. Jon was reminded with a painful thump of his _beating_  heart, of Olly. What had Rickon seen? Why had he been made to suffer?

"You tried to save me." 

Though Jon had been staring straight at the boy, it startled him to hear Rickon speak. He saw Sansa gaze at the pair of them intently, from the corner of his eye. Jon felt a tug that was beginning to feel familiar, a pull to meet her eyes, but instead he continued to look at Rickon, his brow furrowed. He did not dare voice the questions on his tongue, instead allowing his brother-cousin to speak on his own.

"From Ramsay, I mean." Rickon's clarification did little to untangle Jon's confusion, but he maintained his silence, watching the way Rickon's throat bobbed with a nervous swallow. "Ramsay captured me. Lord Umbar killed Shaggydog." Rickon's voice cracked, and Jon's fingers suddenly twitched, yearning for his direwolf who was not there with him. He remembered the ache he felt when he learned of what became of sweet Lady on the Kingsroad, the grief for Grey Wind that had been dwarfed by the sheer pain of the cursed wedding at the Twins. Jon could not imagine the pain of losing his direwolf. Ghost was a part of him, as much as the Starks were, no matter what dragon had sired him. 

"You were there. With an army. To fight for Winterfell. Ramsay brought me out and made me run. You got on your horse and tried to get to me. You were so close. I almost touched you." It was as if a trance had overtaken Rickon. His eyes were fixed on Jon, but he could see that the boy's mind was a thousand leagues away, years away even. The picture he painted made Jon's stomach roil unpleasantly, and his hand twitched again at his side, as if to reach out to Rickon now. "I didn't make it. His arrow cut through me. You were so close, but I fell."

Guilt crashed down upon Jon, like a wave descending upon a rock. He could remember Ned's death, and Robb's and Catelyn's. He remembered learning what Theon Greyjoy had done, and discovering that his baby brothers had been murdered by their father's ward - even if they were no more his brothers than they had been murdered. But he had not seen their deaths. Jon had seen enough executions to easily imagine Lord Stark's head severed from his neck, but he had not witnessed it. Horrific imaginings of the Red Wedding had plagued his nightmares, but Jon had not been at the Twins, for all that he wished he had been, when he learned of the Northern king's demise. In whatever life he had lived past his men's betrayal, he had not seen Arya die, and he himself had died before Bran, according to their own words. 

He had seen Rickon die though. The very last thing Rickon had seen in the world was Jon's arm extending out to him, and then he had died. Jon had failed. 

"I'm sorry," Jon managed to gasp out against the painful crush of his lungs collapsing in his chest. "Rickon, I'm so sorry." 

Jon's hand reached out to Rickon, unbidden, as if seeking absolution from the Stark he had failed. Hadn't he failed them all though? 

Rickon's gaze was even, steadier than it should have been. He was a child, just a boy. He should not have known death so intimately as to have lived it. Jon could see fear though, and anger simmering underneath it all. Jon had failed Rickon, and Rickon _knew_  it. Jon knew it too, even if he could not remember.

"I guess it doesn't matter now. We're all here." Rickon's voice was dull, and Jon felt his heart sink further when he heard it. They were all alive, weren't they? Whatever magic Bran had invoked, whatever mercy the Old Gods had decided to bestow upon them, the Starks and Jon were here, brought back to life, back to Winterfell. It did not erase the truth of their deaths, however. It did not render them meaningless.

With the last moments of his life, Rickon had reached for Jon, and Jon reached back, only to come up short. 

Rickon stood abruptly, glancing between Jon and Sansa. His eyes darted down to Theon, before wrenching his gaze up and away from the babe cradled in his mother's arms. "Lyarra told me she knew some new passageways. I'm going to see her." His speech was stilted, choppy. Jon glanced at Sansa, whose mouth had puckered as if to caution Rickon against it, but his gaze burned with defiance, and Sansa held her tongue. Without waiting for dismissal, as if there was any to be given, Rickon turned on his heel and hurried from the room. The door swung shut with a loud _b_ _ang_  behind him, loud enough to startle Theon, who promptly pulled away from his mother, and began to wail. 

Jon could not tear his eyes away as Sansa hastily rearranged her gown, cradling her son and whispering soothing nothings in his ear in an attempt to calm him down. Theon's face had grown ruddy, with fat tears welling in the corners of his eyes, rolling down his cheeks. Acting on an instinct Jon could not place, he suddenly sat on a chair beside Sansa, his arms reaching for the babe.

"Here," he offered quietly. "Let me take him." Jon didn't know what comfort he could offer that Sansa would not grant him, and yet he held his arms out all the same. Jon had never been allowed near his cousins when they were babes, save for Robb, when Jon had been just a babe himself. He had held Gilly's son, and wildling babes, but never a prince. Never his - cousin, he supposed. Another cousin. Not even a nephew. A flush rose on Jon's cheeks. Sansa must think him utterly mad, he realized. A man of the Night's Watch acting as though he could offer the babe something that she - the queen, his _mother_  - could not. 

He was shocked when instead, Sansa hesitated for only the barest moment, before placing Theon in Jon's arms gently. 

For a moment Theon's cries lessened somewhat as he adjusted in Jon's hold, curious at the unfamiliar set of hands that suddenly grasped him. His eyes were dark, still too young to have settled, but Jon would have sworn he saw some flecks of grey, the Stark look passing through Sansa, even if she appeared to be a Tully herself. Theon's hair was soft and dark, though not as curly as his sister's. He stared up at Jon for a moment, before his wailing picked up again. Jon paid it no mind, and rocked the babe gently, not allowing himself to wonder who was the man that had given Theon all that did not belong to Sansa herself. 

"He's perfect, Sansa. They both are."

Sansa's gaze sharpened for a moment, before she nodding, almost appearing to drift away as she watched Jon holding her son. He wanted to ask what it was she saw, what world she slipped into, but instead he cleared his throat, and a different question tumbled forth, delivered as a statement, but no less inquisitive.

"Lyarra called me her uncle."

If Jon had not been watching Sansa with attentive eyes, he might have missed the way her breath hitched in her chest. She pursed her lips, before nodding again. 

"That is what she knows you as."

"But she knows me?" Jon pressed, letting his eyes drift back down to the babe in his arms. "And if I had lived, would Theon...?" he lets the words trail off.

Now Sansa's brow was furrowed, and she stared at Jon with something that seemed like frustration. "Of course they know you. You're a Stark. You were one of the only Starks left when Lyarra was born. Arya was off sailing the world, and Bran was in the South. You were - you were closer."

Once upon a time, as the bitter youth he had been, sulking in the shadows, buried in resentment over his status as a bastard, Jon would have interpreted Sansa's words as a slight. He had been _closer_. Was that the only reason he had been named uncle to Lyarra and Theon? Was his proximity all that was important to Sansa, who had suffered too many losses to be picky over which family member happened to be present to act as an uncle to her children? It was what he might have assumed in the depths of his self-pity.

Now he had quarters in Winterfell. There was a special gaze Sansa held, just for him, Jon had already noticed. She had a careful smile that she granted to only Jon, that she had not directed at any of the other Starks, not even Robb. And Robb had always been her favorite. The fact that Sansa's daughter called Jon uncle _meant_  something, and it was for that reason Jon leaned forward slightly, keeping careful hold on the babe that snuffled and shifted in his arms.

"I'm remembering." 

Jon's words, though low and gruff, might very well have been an unforgiving wind from the North itself for the way Sansa froze, her blue eyes fixed on him, mouth parted ever so slightly in shock. 

"Y-you. You are remembering? Remembering what?" Sansa's voice was a touch higher than it had been, and Jon would have sworn he saw a flush of excitement beginning to creep up her neck.

"I don't know yet," Jon admitted, and he almost wished he hadn't, seeing how Sansa almost deflated at his words. "I've been having dreams. Not just at night though. I keep seeing these flashes of the two of us, sitting by a fire at night. I thought it was the same one, over and over, but it's always different. Your dresses, they're different." Jon winced at his clumsy attempts at an explanation, but Sansa just stared at him, her gaze inscrutable. "We were close, weren't we? After my resurrection?"

Sansa gave a simple nod, and Jon exhaled a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

"Yes." Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but it echoed in Jon's mind like a shout into a canyon. "We became close after - everything. I - Jon, I trusted you more than anyone else. You -" Sansa sighed again, and whatever spell had fallen over the two of them, it seemed to break, for even Theon began to squirm and cry in Jon's arms again. "We were very close." 

Wordlessly, Sansa reached for her son, and Jon passed the babe back to the queen, refusing to dwell on how empty his arms now felt, as silence descended upon the pair of them once again.

* * *

**NED**

There had been a time when Ned felt certain nothing would ever be as painful as pulling himself away from a bed of blood and blue roses in Dorne, with his sister's babe in his arms. Life had proven such a thought to be false and almost tragically amusing. Watching Jon grow up in the shadows of Winterfell, staring at his son's prone form on the cusp of death, seeing his daughter's tearstained face as she pleaded with her golden-haired prince for Ned's own life...Ned had known pain. 

Watching Lyarra, his very first grandchild, playing eagerly on the Braavosi rug in front of him was a very particular sort of pain, akin to lingering near doorways as he watched Jon cling to the skirts of servants, never daring to bring himself closer. Ned was perched on one of the chairs scattered throughout the nursery, his arms resting on his knees as his back stooped, his careful grey eyes following Lyarra's every movement. _Lyarra_. Named for Ned's own mother and sister, Sansa had whispered, her blue eyes wide with unshed tears, her teeth tugging on her lower lip, seeking approval from her father, as if he could have done anything but draw Sansa into his arms then and there, his movement unpracticed and sudden. Embracing his children had never felt wholly natural to Ned, though he could not deny that the world seemed to right itself, even temporarily, for the length of time he held them in his arms. Would that he could have held Sansa in his arms, and never let her go.

His granddaughter was the spitting image of her mother. Her thick curls shone copper in the sunlight, and the wide smile that stretched so freely around her lips reminded Ned of the summer days Sansa had grown up in, after the winter of her birth. She was not quite as proper as her queenly mother, but it was not nearly so surprising as Sansa's attitude toward it. Ned would have once imagined the girl who had named her direwolf Lady - and trained the beast to act like one too - would have grown into a woman who expected similar behavior from her children. Catelyn had admitted to Ned, before he was forced to make his own confession and plea for forgiveness, that she feared whatever wars Sansa had endured had hardened their daughter beyond all recognition. Ned disagreed. It seemed to him that Sansa had softened, more than anything. There was Stark iron underneath her skin, she had shown it easily enough that morning, her wolf fangs bared at the perceived threat to her children. But the same lips that had been pulled back into a ferocious snarl flattened easily enough into a joyous smile - the likes of which Ned could not even recall seeing on his daughter's face.

Sansa had been easier as a child, Ned would admit. All of Winterfell knew it. She took to her lessons, and was preoccupied with becoming a perfect lady, following the public example her lady mother set for her children - never the wiser to Catelyn's fierce spirit that still caught Ned off guard, no matter how many years the two had been wed. 

And she had loved stories, just as Lyanna had. It made Ned's mouth twist into something akin to a wistful smile whenever he thought of it. All of his children had loved stories to some degree, no matter how often they teased Sansa for it, but their interests waxed and waned according to their latest fancies. Robb had been most interested in great battles and kings, while Arya had sought adventures in the tales her parents and Old Nan shared. Bran had liked the stories of Southron knights, and Rickon had been as fascinated as he was terrified by Old Nan's chronicles of ice spiders and unicorns in the Far North. Sansa though, had listened to the all with rapture. Her eyes had always appeared so wide and blue as she devoured every tale with childlike wonder. Her head had been full of brave knights and beautiful ladies, and it was impossible for Ned to think of anyone but his sister, a beautiful lady herself, who had found her knight from a song, and died from him. None of Sansa's songs had ever been quite so sad. Ned had wished they never would be, but there were cracks in his daughter's icy skin, and he knew such a hope was foolish. 

He could wish it for Lyarra though, as he was certain Sansa did. Ned wished it for Theon. His breath had caught in his throat when he listened to Sansa's biting accusations, her insistence that her son would know peace. Hadn't Ned and Catelyn sworn the very same, when Ned returned from the war, haunted by more ghosts than he had names for? Perhaps Sansa's dream was as foolish as Ned's hope that his daughter had never known sadness, but he would not steal one more thing away from her. Had Sansa truly wanted so very much in the world, that the gods would not think to grant her peace for her children?

Ned let his finger run through his granddaughter's dark auburn curls as she inched closer, though she paid him no mind. Her hair was closer to Cat's than Sansa's, but she had inherited the Stark curls. Ned wondered what else the heir to the North would inherit from her Stark mother, and what she might inherit from a faceless father?

Movement from the corner of the room forced Ned's eyes up, away from his granddaughter. He found himself meeting Robb's gaze, and a sigh trapped itself in his chest. Ned had spoken to his son, only briefly, following his argument with Sansa that morning, only to inform him of the lie Ned had forced upon them all Robb's life. His first conversation with his son, since they both returned from their premature deaths, had been to inform Robb that Jon was not a bastard at all, but in fact his cousin - the lost Targaryen prince. There was much that need to be said between Ned and Robb, and so he stood when Robb opened the door, understanding a summons when he received one. 

Ned followed his oldest son into the corridor, his eyes reluctantly leaving his granddaughter, busy at play with her wooden elephants, and following the agitated lines of Robb's shoulders. Not for the first time since waking in the godswood, Ned felt guilt clench at his heart. His son. A Northern king. He had been so young when Ned died, they all had been. Robb though, he had shouldered the burden of the entire North. Declared independence for the land they loved. He had been forced to become a man, and then a king. He had died before he ever had a chance to be a father. Ned would have been a grandfather before even Lyarra, his wife had explained in hushed sobs, before her tears gave way to fury and betrayal of the very worst sort, dealt by Ned's own tongue. 

"What did you wish to speak about, son?" Ned's voice was soft and kind, though he had his suspicions as to what had Robb's limbs practically trembling with unrestrained motion. Ned himself did not know what to make of his natural born grandchildren, but he had held his tongue. Sansa had been a girl of only thirteen when he had been killed by her betrothed in King's Landing. She was four and twenty now, a woman, a _queen_. It troubled Ned to think that a man might have dishonored his daughter, but he could not truly reconcile the thought with the firm tilt of Sansa's chin, the blazing determination in her eyes. Ned had feared for his daughter, in her youth, enchanted by the tales of knights and fair maidens. Catelyn had worried as well, particularly after Waymar Royce had visited Winterfell. It had been easy then, to imagine his little girl becoming swept up in the gilded promises of a man utterly unworthy of her. It had been easy to imagine all of Sansa's hopes and dreams shattering alongside her innocence. It was far more difficult to look at the woman she had become, and imagine her allowing any man to truly dishonor her, even if she had not wed - either in her mother's sept, or before the heart tree. 

It was difficult though, for Robb to see that. Upon Sansa's birth, Ned had tasked Robb and Jon both with the protection of their younger sister. He had made them repeat such a promise when Arya was born, and then Bran and Rickon. It had been unfair. Ned knew it then, as he knew it now. His father had elicited a similar oath from Brandon and Ned when Lyanna had been born, and Ned had carried the guilt of her death in his heart every day. He had never wanted to place such a burden on his own children. And yet, the moment the tiny babe had been placed in his arms, Ned could think of nothing else but keeping her safe, and _h_ _appy_  for all her days. The same thought repeated itself with the subsequent births of his children.

Now, Ned was beginning to fear that placing such a burden onto the shoulders of Robb and Jon had only compounded the leaden weights they already bore. 

"Father, I..." Whatever words Robb had been prepared to launch seemed to wilt and die in his throat as he stared at Ned with wide blue eyes - his sister's eyes, his _mother's_  eyes. His son had been so young, and yet a king. His son had died a king, and he had died so young.

Wordlessly, Ned moved forward to grasp at his firstborn, pulling him into a tight embrace. Such gestures were rare, and almost foreign to Ned. Catelyn had often pulled her children to her breast, wrapping them with her arms. Robb and eventually Bran had protested, squirming under her touch, insisting they were too old to hug their mother. Ned had never been an affectionate father, but he felt his son tremble underneath his arms, and found himself blindly wishing he had been present to see the night the crown was placed on Robb's head, the moment he had been declared King in the North. It did not matter that it had been Ned's own death that precipitated such an event. It did not matter that if Ned had been alive, and the North had still been pushed to the point of secession by the Lannisters, it might have been Ned's own head the Northerners tried to crown. Ned wished he had seen his people name his son king, but not as deeply as he wished none of his children had ever learned the heavy burden of rule.

Ned had _seen_  what kingship had done to Robert. He had been accused of being blind to his faults, letting his friendship fall over his face like a veil of memories and pain, but Ned had not been ignorant. It was another shame that burned in his chest. He had been content to stay in the North, and tend to his own family and his own people, and spare little thought to the Southern kingdoms and the ruination Robert crept closer and closer toward. Perhaps Ned had not been aware of the most intimate details, but he had known Robert Baratheon. It had not surprised him, what he had become. And still, Ned had done nothing until the king was upon his doorstep, and it became impossible to refuse. 

Nearly a dozen more kings and queens had been crowned since the day Rhaegar Targaryen had died on the Trident, according to the history Bran had shared. Ned had only lived to see Robert Baratheon and the bastard son masquerading as Robert's trueborn heir, Joffrey. Now he lived again, and was the father to two former kings and uncle to another. His daughter ruled the North from the ancestral Stark home. And Ned wished they had known none of it. 

Traitorous thoughts chased each other in his mind as he held Robb, remembering the moment Catelyn had tentatively placed the babe in his arms, and stiffly informed him she had named him Robb. Nothing had mattered in that moment, not his sister's death, not his own treason, not even Catelyn's anger. Nothing had existed in Ned's world, save for his son. As Robb pulled away, Ned wished it was a moment they could return to, without the weight of kingdoms and politics. 

He watched Robb steel himself, preparing whatever speech he had readied for his father - ruined by the need to remind one another that they were _alive_  - only to have whatever words Robb had thought up cut off by the gasp of a maid, followed quickly by the crash of a silver tray onto the stone steps, and then hurried footsteps as she hurried away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> catch me on [tumblr](http://cat-stark.tumblr.com).


	7. you're sailing from another world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa does not wonder after their eagerness to declare her queen. Instead, she wonders if she truly would have longed for a crown, if she had known just how stooped her spine might become underneath it's burdensome load.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guys are truly wonderful. i'm hoping to get to reply to all of your comments over the next few days, just know that each one brings me such joy, and excites me even further.

**ROBB:**

It felt as though every eye of the gathered lords and ladies were on Robb and the Starks, positioned at the end of the Great Hall, in front of the hearth. It had been Lord Eddard's seat, for as long as Robb had lived in Winterfell. It would have been Robb's own, if he had survived his war. It felt strange, standing in his family's home, in front of the places he had known so well as a child, and feeling as though he didn't belong. He wondered if it was similar to how Jon had felt, growing up under the heavy mantle of bastard, even if it had not been true. He wondered if it was how his siblings felt, when they had returned to Winterfell, to find their home desecrated by krakens and Boltons and gods knew what else.

Robb let his eyes sweep across the Great Hall, taking in the expressions. All of the lords and ladies that had been in Sansa's solar had gathered, and Robb allowed his gaze to rest on Dacey. His eyes had not yet met her's, but he longed to cross the length of the room, and embrace the woman who had fought so honorably, beside Robin and the Smalljon. Robb had believed the Red Wedding left no survivors, and yet here Dacey Mormont stood, a testament to her House's words.

It seemed the only person not present was Sansa, who had called the meeting immediately, after Ned had informed her solemn-faced, that a servant had caught him and Robb in the corridor. Sansa had sprung into action immediately, but now that all were assembled, she was nowhere to be found.

"Where's Jon?" Rickon's voice whispered, and Robb tore his eyes away from the lords and ladies of Winterfell, and looked at his youngest brother. His eyes were wide and searching, and Robb was reminded of the painful time following Bran's fall, in which Rickon had cried, following Robb around like a shadow, always trying to climb his breeches, as if he were Bran, and Robb were some great height that could be scaled, desperate for a comfort none had known how to give. Eddard Stark had never been the most tactile man, and Robb had so desperately wanted to please his father, he had imitated his every move as a boy, carrying with him some habits into manhood. Sansa and Catelyn had always held and carried Rickon the most, but Sansa had gone South, and Catelyn had been beside herself. Robb reached out his arm to grasp at his brother's shoulder, giving him a firm nod. 

"Jon will be here soon," he promised quietly. However, Rickon's question brought to light Jon's absence. Robb wondered where his brother-cousin had gotten off to for only a moment, before the door opened, and every man and woman who had been seated suddenly leaped to their feet, as Sansa swept through the room, followed by a pale-faced Jon.

A hush descended over the hall as Sansa turned with a face carved from marble, and sat upon her wooden throne, engraved with thistles and direwolves. The rest of the hall followed their queen's lead, and took their seats. 

"My lords and ladies, I'm sure you can guess why I have requested your presence here." Sansa's eyes glanced at the family gathered behind her for the briefest moment, before she turned back to the nobility, and Robb watched with fascination. This had been the part he hated. This had been everything Robb wished to shrug off, alongside his crown. He had hated war, but he had understood it. Put a blade in Robb Stark's hand, and he could win any battle, it had been said. He had made Tywin Lannister tremble, Robb knew it to be true, even if he had not seen the very act. The negotiating and careful tiptoeing around the wants and desires and motivations of the vassals had frustrated Robb to no end, however. His direwolf had cleaved the Greatjon's fingers from his hand, before Robb earned his respect. He wondered how Sansa had done it, with no direwolf or husband to speak of.

"The gods have granted us a gift." Sansa's voice was soft, and Robb wondered if she believed her own words. He wondered if any of those assembled believed them too. "The Starks have risen again. Yesterday morning, my family was found in the godswood, very much alive." 

Once, when Catelyn had brought Robb and Sansa with her to Riverrun, to visit her father and brother, Robb had followed the Blackfish to one of the many rivers on the surrounding land, and witnessed a dam bursting, and the water that poured forth, an explosion of power unlike any Robb had ever seen before. It had left him slackjawed, gaping wordlessly in the midst of his uncle's laughter, staring at the force of the rushing river, stronger than even the wood and stone assembled to hold it back. The explosion of noise that followed Sansa's declaration was reminiscent of that moment in time.

Every lord and lady in the hall was suddenly roaring, questions and demands stumbling over their lips, creating a cacophony of sound. Rickon trembled, and pressed his face against Robb's tunic. He ran his hand through his brother's curls, letting it come to a rest on Rickon's back, where his thumb moved in small, comforting circles. He watched Sansa watching her lords and ladies, the exhaustion evident in her expression, and for the first time, Robb felt a sense of guilt over the complications that had surely risen with the Starks. Robb would never be anything but grateful for this second chance at life, a chance with his _family_ , but this couldn't be easy on his sister. 

Finally, Sansa held up her hand, and gradually silence fell over the hall again.

"I know you have questions and concerns. You may speak, but please, we cannot fall to fighting among ourselves."

It was Cley Cerwyn who spoke first, a fierce scowl on his face. 

"How are we to believe that this is truly the Starks?" 

Robb watched Sansa raise an eyebrow. He had spent moons practicing the very trick in the looking glass in his rooms, having seen its power in action. His father had been the Lord of Winterfell his entire life, but it had always been his lady mother who could quell even the most cantankerous of lords with a single glance. Robb wondered how long Sansa had dedicated to perfecting her expression.

"I know my family, Lord Cerwyn. And I have seen the magic of the Old Gods before. We all have." The great and terrible war that Sansa had spoken of twice now seemed to weigh heavily on the minds of all gathered, and a shuddering silence rippled through the lords and ladies. There was a pregnant pause, and then -

"What does this mean for the North?" Lady Barbrey Dustin was the one to speak, her question somehow as imperious and haughty as Robb ever remembered from the long-necked lady. Murmurs broke out again, and another lord that Robb did not recognize stepped forward, his chin tilted an inch too high, as if he commanded any sort of right in this hall.

"We crowned a queen, for there were no male Starks left. But now you're telling us that Lord Stark - the man whose beheading gave us cause to fight for our independence - and the _two_  men we declared kings have returned to life, along with _all_  of the Stark male heirs." 

Robb's heart plummeted as he realized what the lord was saying. In the wake of his _resurrection_ , the grief that threatened to consume him every moment he did not spend thinking of anything else, reuniting with his family, and attempting to adjust to the life he had been dropped into, it had never once crossed his mind that the North would try to thrust his crown back atop his head. Sansa though, did not look surprised in the slightest. Had she suspected this would happen, then? 

Wylla Manderly, as distinctive as she had ever been, with her bright, virescent hair, was closest to the Starks, next to her sister who stood with hands folded demurely at her back, though her stance suggested she might leap into action at the slightest provocation. The Manderly women were close enough for Robb to hear Wylla snort, and mutter to her sister, "And what good did those kings ever do us?" 

Anger and shame and regret and a thousand other emotions Robb could not put a name to curdled in his belly, and he clenched his jaw, wrenching his gaze away from the women, focusing instead on Dacey Mormont, who had stepped forward.

"Your Grace, you are my queen," she announced for the hall to hear, her eyes on Sansa, before sliding her gaze to Robb without warning. "However, it was the Young Wolf that I knelt for." 

Sansa's face remained placid, but Robb could see in her eyes that it was a blow, and one she had not anticipated. There was apology in Dacey's eyes, but determination. It was a gaze Robb had become familiar with, when she served as a member of his personal guard. In that moment, he wished he could toss propriety from the nearest tower, and stride to the Mormont lady and shake her by the shoulders. Didn't she realize what that bloody crown had cost him? Didn't she realize what _he_  had cost the North, stumbling under the weight of it? It was by some miracle, some quirk of fate, that she had even survived the cursed wedding at all. Robb did not want his crown, nor his kingdom back. He only wanted his wife and child. But it was not the time, nor the place to make such utterances.

Lord Mazin, one of the older faces Robb could pick out from the crowd, a man he remembered from his youth and his campaign, scoffed, and shook his head. "Aye. I bent the knee to Robb Stark too. Just as I bent the knee to Jon Snow." Robb's head snapped toward Jon, who had paled under the sharp stares of Robb and the other Starks. Had he known? Was that why he had followed Sansa into the hall, looking as if he had seen another ghost rise from the dead? "And I bent the knee to Queen Sansa. All three deserved to rule, but only one managed to keep the North while doing so." 

The admonition - though a praise of Sansa's reign more than anything - stung, but Robb held his tongue. He had made mistakes - many of them. He had paid dearly for his mistakes, and so had the entire North. Regret would be his bedfellow for the rest of his life, but he had once been a king. Whatever tenuous position he held now, he would not allow the lords and ladies to see him as a greenboy who needed a public dressing down, as if he had been terrifying his siblings in the crypts again. 

"Her Grace has only ever lead is in peacetime!" Robb didn't recognize the lord who protested, lingering toward the back of the hall. "We can hardly compare their reigns, since it was King Robb and King Jon who lead us during the wars." 

"Perhaps not, however it is only because of Queen Sansa that we did not starve before the Army of the Dead reached Winterfell." Wynafryd Manderly's even voice had risen to join the dialogue, and at precisely the right moment. The sneer on her green-haired sister's face suggested that something very different - and wholly inappropriate - might have been shouted out instead. As amusing as Robb might have found such an instance, he knew it would not help Sansa now. "She was the one responsible for feeding all of Winterfell, its refugees, and the Dragon Queen's armies. If it wasn't for her, King Jon would have never been able to take back Winterfell in the first place. The Knights of the Vale swore to _her_ , well before she was ever named queen." 

Finally, Sansa held up a hand, and silence fell over the hall once more.

"My lords and ladies, I thank you for your input. The matter of the North has always been the cause that is most important to me, and I have sworn to do right by my people. It is an oath I intend to keep for all of my days. Rest assured, I will be discussing the matters of issue and sovereignty with the Starks, and the finest legal minds in the North. No stone will be left unturned. However," Sansa's face hardened, and Robb swore he could see nearly every spine stiffen, as if waiting to hear their queen's command, "For now I am your queen. In less than a moon's time, the Southron council will be arriving in Winterfell. Matters have become -" Sansa's eyes drifted to Bran "- complicated. The South is already in a precarious position without a ruler. The North cannot afford to be destabilized, not now." 

Sansa's words seemed to work, reminding the noble men and women of their cause, their true adversaries, no matter what tentative peace accords might have been struck between the North and the South. Robb would never trust them. He still struggled to believe that Bran had been their king once, but he had died, and a new king would be propped up to sit on the ugly Iron Throne, and Robb would not trust him either. It was a sentiment that seemed to be shared, for the grumblings of the lords and ladies seemed more unified now. 

Allowing the whispers to continue sweeping the hall for another moment, Sansa stood from her throne, and everyone else followed suit. 

"Thank you for gathering so swiftly, and for your candor. There is still much to be done in preparation for the Southron delegation. I will retire to speak with my family. I invite you all to join us tonight, for a feast in honor of my House, and the gift the Old Gods have granted unto us." There was no stiffness in Sansa's voice, no lingering traces of awkwardness. Robb had always felt like a trussed up ponce whenever he was expected to give any sort of speech or proclamation that didn't have to do with battle. The words rolled naturally off of Sansa's tongue, well-practiced without sounding rehearsed.

She was born to do this, Robb realized, almost dizzy with the force of it, trailing after his family as they followed Sansa back to her solar. Sansa had dreamed of being queen as a child, and it had been a true possibility, according to his mother and father. But as children, all being queen meant was being married to the king. No one spoke of Cersei Baratheon, and any feats she might have accomplished during the years of the Rebellion. No one spoke of her maneuvers and manipulations in the capitol - not until war had descended upon Westeros with a vengeance, and it became apparent what danger Robert Baratheon's negligence had invited into his kingdom. When Robb imagined his sister as a queen, it had meant she would marry her golden prince, and give him many sons, just like in the songs. Just like she wanted. 

Gods he had been so stupid. Sansa had a quick mind, cleverer than most. She had learned duty at the feet of both Ned and Cat, and she learned quickly. She absorbed every lesson and wasted little time in incorporating all that she had learned into her everyday routines. Robb remembered watching Arya with a bow and arrow, or even a wooden sword when she could escape her septa, and thinking what a waste it would be, for his sister to be married off to some lord and expected to run a castle, as if all she was good for was producing heirs. While Robb had no doubt Arya would excel at running a keep, and earn the favor and love of all the smallfolk within a fortnight, he had always seen her as _more_  than that. 

Now, staring at the back of Sansa's head as she quietly whispered to their mother, before beckoning to Robb, Jon, and Ned to follow her into her solar, Robb knew he ought to have realized it for _both_  her sisters. Arya had never been meant to be only a lady, and Sansa had never been meant to be anything but a queen.

* * *

  **SANSA:**

"That went better than I expected," Robb announced in a jovial tone, with a hopeful smile playing at the corners of his lips. Sansa wondered, idly, if his hope was precipitated by the acceptance of the Northern lords and ladies, or if it had something to do with the confrontation from the morning - as if Sansa might have enough goodwill to forgive the insult he had laid at her feet, and upon her children's brows. The hopefulness of his grin faded somewhat, however, as he took in the serious expression Sansa wore, closer in resemblance to Ned and Jon.

"There are still matters we need to discuss," Sansa explained tiredly, gesturing at the cluster of papers that were laid out on her desk. "The lords and ladies may have accepted this, but they received a very sudden shock. It is quite likely that in a few days' time, when they begin to settle, more questions and issues may arise."

Her father nodded, as if he had expected such a speech, and glanced at his daughter. "I assume you are here to talk about leadership in the North?"

Sansa took a deep breath, and nodded. 

It was the subject she had been dreading since her own shock had worn off, and she had played out the thousands of scenarios in her mind. There were infinite ways matters could unfold. After all, they hardly seemed to be playing by any known rules, considering the gods themselves had been responsible for bringing back the Starks. Sansa had _seen_  her father's head removed from his body, and yet he stood before her, as tall and unmoving as the walls of Winterfell, also risen again. Sansa had managed very little sleep the night before, too consumed with all of the possibilities and potential catastrophes she could see emerging from the miracle of her family's resurrection. There were no less than a dozen different ways it could end in war, and Sansa simply could not allow it to happen. Nor would she see her family shatter under the weight of a new world, not when she had just managed to get them back. She was grateful to the gods, she would finally admit, though not aloud, lest her voice be heard, and the miracle be snatched away as quickly as it had been given. Sansa was grateful her family had been returned to her, but it complicated matters. 

Sansa could not even begin to think of the South and the impending arrival of their delegates, though it was of utmost importance, and would require careful planning and forethought. She couldn't begin to unravel the messy, tangled strings Bran's death and now resurrection would cause to the other kingdom, for she needed to sort out her own first. Sansa had spent the better part of five years doing everything she could to defend and stabilize the North, and it was quite possible that it would all crash down around her, with the blessed arrival of the Starks that had died. 

Two former kings and the Warden of the North, all three of whom had a strong and powerful claim to the seat Sansa now occupied. 

"The lords and ladies were right," Sansa said after a deep breath, meeting the gaze of her father, her brother, _Jon_. "All three of you have a strong claim to the North. Arguably, a better claim than I do." Anticipating some sort of protest from Jon at the very least, Sansa held up her hand in a pacifying gesture, similarly to how she had quelled the vocal nobility only minutes ago. "Jon, as the son of Lyanna rather than Ned, your claim is the weakest. There is precedence for you to take the throne, however you gave up your crown in your previous life. The North will not soon forget." Sansa delivered her words as plainly as she could. She stripped her voice of any emotion, refusing to betray her true feelings on the matter, the hurt that had welled up deep within her when she received the scroll bearing the mark of a direwolf, and the title _Warden of the North_. It was not fair to punish Jon for it now, not when he had no memories of the action - as if it had never happened. 

Sansa steeled herself, and tore her gaze away from Jon, to look at her father and brother instead. Ned's eyes were warm, but she could read the concern behind them. "I am willing to step down as queen, but I will not do so immediately. Neither of you are currently fit to rule the North. Not yet. The world has moved on since your deaths, and much has changed. I spoke the truth in the hall; the North cannot afford to be destabilized right now. I will continue to act as regent for at least two more years, which should provide more than enough time to learn the world as it is now."

It was Robb who spoke first, his voice hot and blazing, the force of it nearly stealing Sansa's breath from her lungs. 

"I am not a king. Not anymore. Kingship ends with death, and no matter that I might be here before you today, I remember my death. I remember it well." A shadow crossed Robb's face, and Sansa's hand trembled at her side, aching to reach across and brush her fingertips against Robb's cheek, to offer whatever small comfort she could. Sansa had not known death, not in the intimate fashion her family had learned it. The Old Gods - if they did exist - had spared her that at the very least, though Sansa found it difficult to carve gratitude from her grief, when she had learned it through the pain of loss. 

Sansa's eyes turned to her father, who was already shaking his head with a sorrowful gaze. "I was never meant to wear a crown. You though, always were, sweet girl. Even before any of us realized it. I was not there to see your men place the crown on your head, but I would see it there for the rest of the days the gods have granted me with this life." Sansa swallowed painfully, feeling tears burning at the back of her throat, though she refused to let them fall. She managed only a small smile at her father, before Jon spoke, drawing her attention back to him, like a moth to a candle.

"You are the queen in the North, Sansa. Winterfell has always been yours." The simplicity and plainness of Jon's words nearly broke Sansa's heart right there, as if she had been seeking some reminder, some sign that it was indeed Jon returned to her from death once more. 

Taking a moment to gather her breath and her thoughts, Sansa nodded her head several times, clearing her mind, until she was certain she could speak with only the slightest waver to her voice.

"Thank you." She attempted to infuse the words with everything she currently felt. "I swear to do my duty honorably." As if she could do anything less. Even if her departed family had become far more than mere memory, Sansa could no more shake the expectations she had imposed upon herself following their deaths, than she could change the color of her eyes. She was of the North, and she was part Tully. Duty and honor were what she had, when she had been stripped of all else. "In the coming moons you will need to sign various contracts and speak before the lords and ladies, but...thank you."

Sansa was not foolish enough to believe it would truly be so simple. As Lord Edwyle Dormund - formerly Edwyle Snow, until the war had left only a bastard son to carry on the House name - had pointed out, Sansa had been the only available option to the North. While her efforts during the Battle of the Bastards, and the preparations for winter and war had certainly endeared her to the people, and shown them she was fit to rule, she had always known that if there had been another choice, another son of Eddard Stark, she would have been swiftly set aside in favor of the male heir. It was an attitude Sansa hoped to eventually change with her own edict, created to dismantle the semi-salic law that pervaded the North. It was not a popular decision, especially not after she had given birth to her son. However, it was an instance in which Sansa had forged ahead, rather than carefully balancing the scales of approval and concession. 

When Sansa allowed herself the moment to give into the rage that still burned hot in her rib cage, she thought there might be no end to the fury, not until her throat became raw with the force of her screams. It had taken the death and exile of nearly her entire House for Sansa to be accepted as queen, a fact which made her dizzy with wrath if she allowed it to. Her claim to Winterfell, to the North had been enough that she had been sold _twice_  as if no more than a brood mare, but not enough for her to be seen as a capable and just ruler. Not at first. 

Her family though, they had seen it. Sansa knew it wouldn’t be quite so easy as to let her brother and father say their pretty words, and assume that was all that needed to be done. Words were wind, and no matter how powerful these words, they meant nothing when not attached to action. But that could wait. The day was nearing a close, and there were still a thousand tasks to see to - a thousand more, now that there was a feast in honor of House Stark.

And still, there was another matter that could not wait.

“Thank you for speaking with me. Robb, if you have another moment, I would speak with you alone.” 

Taking their cue to leave, Ned and Jon nodded, giving Sansa questioning gazes and careful bows as they quietly stepped out of her solar, leaving Sansa and Robb alone, standing on opposite ends of her desk. 

Sansa regarded Robb with careful eyes as he took his seat. His face was a paradox of lines and curves - the hardened angles that spoke of the kingship that had been chiseled into his being by the stoneworkers of the North, and yet the youthful slope that intimated his true age. Gods but he was _young_ , Sansa recalled, with the painful ache in her heart. To the girl that had been stranded in King's Landing, seemingly abandoned by her pack, and left to fend for herself, Robb had been a figure of glory and honor. The first King in the North since Torrhen had knelt to Aegon. Her brother, a king. Sansa had been a princess, even then, a hostage of the Lannisters, but none of it had mattered to her as much as it meant that Robb was surely coming for her. He had always been something impossibly bright. Even their father had spoke of Robb's potential, though he certainly had never imagined himself to have fathered a king, Sansa knew. Robb had been something legendary, and his mythos had only grown in tandem with the panic in Tywin Lannister's eyes.

It had been so easy then, for Sansa to forget that her brother was barely more than a _boy_. 

Gods, but there were servants who were the age Robb had been when he was crowned, that seemed younger than Sansa's brother. It had been easy to forget, for no matter how old Sansa had been, she had always been _younger_  than Robb. The way the Lannisters spoke of the Young Wolf, anyone might have thought that he had twice the years. He and Joffrey had been the same age when they died, though Sansa had never heard Robb called a boy-king, a moniker she often heard muttered in regard to her former betrothed. Sansa's heart ached for Robb's youth, but she could not allow her affection for her brother to cloud her judgment, nor interfere with what needed to be said. 

Jaime Lannister had been seven and ten when he cut down the Mad King, and saved all of King's Landing. Ned Stark had been Robb's age, when he inherited all of Winterfell, and went to war for his family. It was to say nothing of girls forced to carry the name 'women', though they could scarcely be called that. The world and its wars had little time for humans and their notions of youth. Childhood meant nothing, when death stalked angrily around every corner.

"Please, sit," Sansa beckoned, her hand extended to the chair across from her own. Robb took his seat, his eyes wary and mournful at the same time. For the first time, Sansa wondered after the woman he had married. She might have been ashamed it had taken her so long for her good-sister to cross her mind, but Sansa had been markedly _busy_  with the sudden reappearance of her entire family. Besides, she was well-practiced in _not_  thinking about Talisa Maegyr. Still, whatever her feelings on the woman who had cost Robb the North and his bannermen, it was undeniable that her brother had loved her. Sansa did not wish her brother such an agony. 

She could not, however, afford to excuse Robb's actions based on grief. Sansa had seen her fair share of it, she had done more than enough grieving. Though the Starks had eventually risen from the godswood, Sansa had mourned every single member of her family. She had mourned and wept, until she felt that her insides had been hollowed, and she had been made a mere vessel for grief and sadness, meant to walk through the hollow halls of Winterfell like a ghost condemned to live, when all those she loved had long since moved on.

At one point, Sansa had lived for her children, and her children alone. She had steadily and carefully begun to rebuild to her life; never too high, never wanting or asking for too much. Sansa could not bear to let the gods sweep their hands and send her life careening again, for whatever amusements they enjoyed. Sansa had carved out a small space for her, and she built her life around her daughter and her son - her people. She lived for her children, and for the North. She lived for herself, for the Sansa who existed without the other Starks. Her heart though, belonged to her children in a way that only motherhood could bring about, and so when she stared at Robb, seated across from her, it was the names of Lyarra and Theon that pressed most insistently against her lips, pushing back any long buried grievances she still held in her heart.

"I thought it best we discuss some matters, before turning in for the night." A diplomatic beginning, to say the very least. Robb tensed, recognizing Sansa's tone, and an uncertainty tugged at her heart when she observed the action. Robb was preparing to meet her as an equal. Did that mean he saw her as a true queen? Or did he still regard himself as a king, meeting a fellow ruler in negotiations? Robb had relinquished his claim to the crown, yes, but it was not merely words and a piece of metal that made a king. Could it perhaps be a bit of both? Sansa's mind was frantically turning over the possibilities, overanalyzing Robb's every breath, so much so that she nearly missed his response.

"I agree. Too much has not gone said."

And yet silence fell, thick and heavy, with the weight of time and space stretched out between them. Neither knew how to navigate such an abyss. Sansa worried her lower lip between her teeth. How must it feel for Robb? Her older brother, who had worn no title so well as _brother_ , who had been the hero of her songs and dreams? Robb, whom she had loved best and brightest during their days at Winterfell? The first _king_  she had ever acknowledged, when she had finally understood enough to accept a king into her heart, beyond the title granted to Robert Baratheon, by virtue of defeating Rhaegar Targaryen. 

"You blame me for not rescuing you from King's Landing."

"Yes."

The accusation and confirmation hung nearly as heavy as the silence. Robb paled underneath Sansa's unwavering gaze, but he pinned her with his own blue eyes, the eyes they had both inherited from their lady mother. 

"You are a queen now. Surely you understand."

Sansa inhaled, and held the breath against her lungs, until it was physically painful to keep it trapped in her body, and she finally released it with a sharp exhale. Robb spoke with all the authority and confidence of a man who had been forced to make difficult decisions as a king, impossible ones, even. Sansa had come to learn how difficult being a monarch was, and she respected the positions Robb had found himself in. She could understand - to no small degree - what each decision and maneuver had cost Robb in the great game. She was not so far removed from the politicking of the South, that she had forgotten how heavy the toll was for every single move made in war and kingship. 

And yet, it was Robb who would never understand, who likely never _could_  understand. For he had been a king, yes, and he had felt the burden of rule, but he had never been a woman. There had been pressure on Robb, from the moment he was born, as the heir of Winterfell, but it was not the same. It never was, for boys and girls. Had Sansa been born a boy, and not a girl, perhaps Robb's army might have saved her - or he might have at least tried. It might have been more dire, from a militant standpoint. Sansa would have been higher in the line of succession, even if she should have eventually been named heir, when Bran and Rickon were believed to be dead by Theon's hand. Then again, perhaps the Lannisters would have had Sansa murdered with her father, if she had been born a boy. It was a pointless exercise, contemplating the 'what-if's', and Sansa had little use for it. She only wished Robb could understand the position she had been in, as she had so often attempted to do for him.

"As a ruler, I understand you were faced with difficult decisions. I will not pretend to understand them all," the name, unspoken, might as well have been shouted, and Robb's eyes darkened in anger, but Sansa continued without allowing him to speak, "But that does not mean I have forgotten. Nor does it mean I've forgiven."

Robb's jaw clenched tightly, and there was a hint of exasperation to his movement, a frustration that tilted Sansa's chin up in aggravation. How many times must he have had this argument with their mother? How many times had he been forced to explain himself and his position to Catelyn? How many times had he refused to mount any sort of rescue for his sister? It might have been dozens, or hundreds, perhaps even thousands. But Sansa was not Catelyn, and Robb never had to defend himself to her.

“I’m _sorry_ ,” Robb snapped, and though there might have been true remorse, it was buried underneath layers of frustration. “Sansa, you _have_  to know that I never wanted to leave you. I hated knowing you were trapped in King’s Landing, but you were _safe_ , and you were a hostage and -”

“I wasn’t,” Sansa interrupted, not allowing Robb to finish. He stopped, abruptly, and stared at his sister with dark eyes. “I wasn’t safe.”

“You were a hostage,” Robb said slowly, repeating himself, the words forming a question he had not yet dared to speak aloud. “There are rules for how hostages are treated.” 

Sansa met Robb’s stare with her unwavering gaze, the truth plain for him to see in her face. “I was a hostage of the _Lannisters_ ,” she scoffed. “What did they know of honor?”

 _Nothing,_  whispered her mind, as she thought of the lions and their games. Tommen and Myrcella had been the best of them, but it had been their own family’s machinations that lead to their deaths. Perhaps Jaime Lannister had sought it in the end, but Sansa had seen the scars he left behind. She was a wolf, and she bore the lions that had trapped her no love. 

"Tell me," Robb growled, his hands made into fists at his sides, the ghost of a direwolf moving restlessly underneath his skin, the command carved from his days as a king and his lifetime as a brother sworn to protect his younger siblings, especially Sansa and Arya, because their father was good and honorable and taught them that little girls ought to be protected. If only the world had been as good and honorable as Lord Eddard Stark, Sansa might have believed it too.

"No." Her voice was soft, but the rejection was steel. Robb all but launched himself from the seat, and began pacing, much as he had a lifetime ago - only that morning - when he learned of Sansa's children, and labeled them bastards. "Sit _down_ , Robb."

He might have surrendered his crown, but Robb had never been good at kneeling. Sansa was the queen who had won the North their independence, but she had only ever followed in the footsteps of her older brother, and Robb didn't listen to her now.

"Sansa, tell me what they did to you, and I'll -" 

" _No!_ " Sansa's voice was exacting and demanded Robb's attention. "No, I will _not_  tell you. My pain is not the blade by which I will allow you to cut yourself in your attempt to atone for the guilt you feel!" Sansa's words were sharp and brutal, and felt as if they had been wrenched from her chest with clawed hands. "I did not _suffer_  so that you might take up arms against ghosts because you no longer know how to live without a crown and a war." 

A sharp, sibilant sound broke the silence, wrenched from Robb's chest with a suddenness that startled both of them, and Sansa felt herself soften, seeing the clear anguish displayed on her brother's face. She leaned forward, her fingers still bracing the weight of her body as she pressed deeper against the grain of her desk, but her eyes were no longer sharp points aimed directly at Robb.

"I suffered in King's Landing, and you did not save me. Those are the truths I carry in my heart. I may be a queen now, Robb, but I was not then. I was a little girl, scared, and in mourning, and alone. It is not _possible_  for me to truly understand, because who I am now was _not_  who I was then. You carry the truth of your own decisions, and your motivations. It doesn't matter if you expound on them for the next decade; it will not change what I endured. My trials as a Lannister hostage will not change the truth of what you faced as a king and a commander. We hold different pieces, Robb, but they're pieces of the past. We cannot change what happened." 

Sansa took a deep breath, and let her eyes soften even further. She straightened, and moved from around her desk, moving closer to Robb, so that she could reach across and grab his hand. It had been so very _long_  since Sansa had embraced her brother. She had once delighted in Robb's hugs, for as a girl, he had been one of the few boys who was taller than her, inheriting the same Stark height. He had swept her off her feet, and spun her around in circles, as if he had noticed how Sansa would watch Jon do the very same to Arya, as if he had known the unladylike envy that had burned in her heart whenever she saw it. 

Robb was not that boy any longer, and Sansa was not that girl. She did not love him in the same way, but she loved him no less than she had throughout all her years as the younger sister of Robb Stark, and the years after, when she had stepped out of his shadow, and into her own name. 

“I don’t pretend to know what will bring you peace, Robb,” Sansa said after what felt like minutes of long silence, comfortable and soothing after the raw hurts that had been laid out between them. “It was a long journey to find my own. But I _have_  found it. I have it in my home, my people. My _children_.” She glanced at him meaningfully, and Robb looked away, his face awash with shame. “I don’t know what will bring you peace, Robb,” Sansa repeated, her words drawing Robb’s eyes back to her own. “I promise you this, though. You will not find it in attempting to fight for my honor. It is a battle I have won for myself.” 

Letting the words sink in, and Robb close his eyes with the weight of them, Sansa hesitated for a moment, before stepping back, brushing down her skirts, and quietly making her way to the door, allowing her brother to remain seated, his stiff posture broken only by the long, curved shadows the fire cast onto the stone floor, of a man laden with the heaviness of two worlds at his back. 

* * *

**JON:**

It seemed like a lifetime ago, that Jon had enjoyed any sort of feast. It _had_  been a lifetime ago, in fact, though he was still reeling from the memories that seemed to seep through the cracks in his mind, and the knowledge that he had once been named _king_ , to say nothing of the death he had experienced, along with the rest of it. To Jon, it almost seemed as though there had been too much life lived, to fit into only one person, and he didn't quite know how to make the pieces all fit within him, when so many of them felt odd and out of place, as if they belonged to someone familiar, but it might not be _him_. 

Jon had adopted his usual place for the feast, finding a shadowy corner to retreat to, though he found it was not nearly as private as his memories from feasts long since faded from the halls of Winterfell, before Robert Baratheon descended like the plague. People sought him out, wishing him well, seeking his gaze out with their own eyes, even bringing petitions and grievances his way along with the gratitude he had returned to the land of the living, and not as a wight, a sentiment Jon felt odd to share. He accepted the well wishes and congratulatory speeches with bemusement, but he sharply ended any attempts to curry favor or hint at a shift in power. His cousin Sansa was the Queen in the North, Jon found himself repeating time and time again. 

And what a lovely queen she was. Jon was certain he was not the only one who had lost his breath, as well as all sense of time, the moment Sansa had stepped into the Great Hall, with Theon clutched to her breast, and Lyarra hovering around her skirts. The princess was dressed in fine blue brocade, bringing out the brightness of her dark auburn hair, resembling Catelyn Stark in miniature, a fact which had not escaped the Lady Stark, who trembled at the sight. Even young Prince Theon was dressed in finery, only three moons old. It was Sansa though, who was truly breathtaking. 

She had worn a gown that faded from the gray of the bodice, into a pure white at the skirts, resembling freshly fallen snow. The entire dress glittered with the web of snowflakes Sansa had embroidered with her own hand, matching the glittering net of weirwood trees that adorned the cloak she wore fastened at her neck, lined with white rabbit fur to stave off whatever cold dared to creep into Winterfell in the time of celebration, ordered by the Queen herself. 

Sansa was a lovely vision, and every man, woman, and child in the room knew it. Jon's place in the shadows, even if more prominent than he had been used to as a child, afforded him the opportunity to overhear the whispers of the many lords as they turned their hungry gazes toward Sansa. It caused Jon's stomach to clench uncomfortably, though he reminded himself it was only for Lyarra's and Theon's sake, that he found himself so concerned. Sansa could protect herself, she had proven as much. She was as strong as Winterfell itself, and would not fall to a man such as Cley Cerwyn. But if it was Sansa's duty to protect herself and the North, Jon would gladly ease some of the burden, by keeping his eyes carefully peeled on behalf of Sansa's children. More than one disgruntled lord had muttered the word 'bastard', underneath his breath, and Jon had carefully committed each face to memory, so as to pass along such pertinent information to his cousin.

Jon found it surprisingly difficult to think, however, as his gaze kept traveling back to Sansa, becoming transfixed with everything she did. She was wearing a crown - the first time Jon had seen her wear one. It was a beautiful circlet, shining white gold in the flickering candlelight, fashioned to look like the leaves of a weirwood tree, fastened in her hair which was gathered into thick curls at the base of her neck. It wasn't the styled braids often worn by Northern women, yet the thick red locks were still artfully arranged with pale blue ribbons, like rivers cutting through a path of blazing fire. Sansa looked every inch like a winter goddess come to life, her flaming hair bringing warmth with every step. 

Lyarra also wore a crown, a simple silver coronet with engraved direwolves, and a glittering blue gemstone that matched her eyes affixed in the center. Watching from the shadows as the young girl leaped and spun with glee, Jon chuckled into his goblet, and wondered just how tightly Sansa had instructed the maids to pin the coronet to her daughter's curls. Seeing Lyarra wince every few minutes or so, and reach up to rub at her head - causing nearly half of her hair to fall out of the elegant tuck it had been swept into, he decided it had been quite tight. 

Something foreign and indiscernible ached in his chest, and Jon stared into his goblet, forcing his eyes to move away from the royal family. They looked every inch the part - all of the Starks did. None of them needed crowns or jewels, for they all seemed to glitter as brightly as the famed rubies that had been scattered on the banks of the Trident, when Robert Baratheon killed Jon's father.

The knowledge still burned in his breast, and Jon took another swig of Arbor Gold, though it tasted like ash on his tongue. In his youth, he would have lurked in the shadows at a feast like this, if he had even been invited. He would have allowed his bastard status to push him to the outskirts of the event, never truly interacting with his family, though the certainty that he was a Stark too - conflicting with the understanding that he _wasn't_ , would have ached. 

Now, no longer a bastard, but a former King, a lost _prince_ , Jon allowed himself to sink back into the familiarity of the shadows, taking comfort in the anonymity and peace they offered, away from the intense stare of Lady Stark, and the well-wishing lords and ladies who sought him out. 

In the shadows, Jon could fade away, until he was but another subject, drinking his fill of the royal family, as if he had any right at all to _want_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and now that the starks have been established in winterfell, the pacing of the story will be picking up significantly! next chapter we'll get a new pov, some long awaited interactions, and an _exciting_ entrance!


End file.
